


Everything They Wanted

by writteninweakness



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cats, F/M, Flashbacks, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Some Humor, may reference manga characters or events, set after the anime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2020-03-17 18:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 55,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18970762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writteninweakness/pseuds/writteninweakness
Summary: What do you do when you get everything you thought you wanted?The answer to that question is a problem for both Kyoya and Haruhi. One that neither of them knows how to answer, despite their best efforts. Kyoya's path took him far from where anyone expected him to be. Haruhi became a lawyer like she planned, but is that enough? She doesn't know. One thing she does know: she was not ready to come face-to-face with Kyoya again.





	1. Regrets

**Author's Note:**

> So... I thought I was going to test writing for Ouran with a short fic. And... I did, for a few hours, then deleted it when I realized it needed more. And then I think it became fatally flawed, so instead my brain went to this idea, which became more and more vocal than my other ideas of crossovers and AUs, superpowers and otherwise, where Kyoya chose to take a markedly different path after getting control of his family's companies in the last episode of the anime. Between that and his father's actions, I had a lot of backstory and possible headcanons for his life with his family, which helped shape this idea.
> 
> Part of it took a weird turn, but it's Ouran so a bit of oddness is to be expected, I think.
> 
> Normally, I post two chapters when I'm nervous, but... I kind of feel like I needed to go to the fourth this time because some explanation is necessary. Or something. I am really nervous about it.

* * *

[ ](https://s1110.photobucket.com/user/youngeratheart/media/other%20misc%20stuff/everything%20cover%20art%20smallish_zpsp2kodd7j.jpg.html)

* * *

_What do you do when you’ve achieved everything you’ve ever worked for?_

Standing at the window of her law office, looking out at the city, Haruhi puzzled over the answer to that question. She’d always figured she’d move on from the one goal to the next, and that had been the answer she’d given when she was asked, but now it felt even more inadequate than it had then.

She put her hand on the window, closing her eyes. If she’d been able to say something more, something more personal and less of… well, of a platitude, would it have made any difference? Would it have changed anything?

Would he be in touch with any of them now? She knew she wasn’t as close to some of them as she had been, her attempt at a relationship with Tamaki causing so many divisions she might as well have killed the host club, and there was another part of her that wanted to blame him for the way the club splintered in the first place, but that was hardly fair. They all had their parts to play and their guilt to bear. For all that they’d worked together to save Tamaki from going to France, they hadn’t done anything for Kyoya despite his erratic behavior, and none of them had stopped him from disappearing.

He’d dropped off the face of the planet after his graduation, and no one knew where he was or if he was even alive now.

None of them could excuse that only on him being the Shadow King. Yes, Kyoya knew the shadows better than anyone, and if he wanted to disappear, he could have, but they still could have done _something_ to keep him from feeling like that was his only option. Weren’t they his friends? They should have seen it. Should have helped him.

Her chest tightened. She supposed she felt more guilt than anyone else, since she had been the one he asked, and maybe she had failed him more than anyone else. For all that Tamaki said he wanted to be equal with Kyoya, someone he could be himself with, she wasn’t sure he had ever really known or understood his friend. Kyoya had, and he had done so much for Tamaki, but the one time she was sure Tamaki thought he was doing something for Kyoya, he’d been about to abandon the host club. That just proved it, didn’t it?

She turned away from the window, going back to her desk. She had what she wanted, what she’d worked so long and hard for. She was a lawyer like her mother. Not everything had gone according to plan, no, and her failed relationship with Tamaki was one part of that, but she was happy with where she was and how far she’d come. She’d completed all her goals, and that was what mattered, wasn’t it? She’d made it.

So why did she feel this sense of… emptiness? Why did it all seem hollow all of a sudden?

She knew what some might say, but she didn’t need a relationship to be happy. She had her career, she had her friends, and there was still time for romance later. She could even have children, too, when she was ready for that—if she ever was.

This was what she wanted. What she needed. She had gotten her dream, and she was happy.

She was content.

She resisted the urge to drop her head onto her desk. Damn it, now it was all so clear, but back then, she’d been an idiot. She hadn’t seen it or understood. Now she did. As much as this job was what she wanted and all she’d worked for, in the quiet moments in between her work, that nagging voice found time to question her.

_What now?_

The truth was, she had no good answer to that. Not now, for herself, and not then, for Kyoya.

* * *

“ _What do you do when you’ve achieved everything you’ve ever worked for?” Kyoya asked, and Haruhi looked over at him. She hadn’t expected such a question from him, and she couldn’t help but wonder about it. Kyoya had seemed distant since the fair, but then she’d assumed it had to do with his father. She wondered if he’d been pressured to give up the host club, just like Tamaki was._

_She reached for the tea cup in front of her. Somehow he always seemed to have a pot of something near him. “I suppose you find a new goal.”_

“ _A new goal?” Kyoya repeated like the idea was foreign to him. He frowned. “Perhaps that is it.”_

“ _What is?”_

_Kyoya studied his cup, which had to have cooled for it not to steam up his glasses as close as he held it right now. “I told you before that I am the third son and all that came with it. The expectations placed upon me as well as the challenge.”_

_She nodded. She’d thought it was rather unreasonable, but he’d claimed he liked it. “Yes, you did. And you never did tell me much about your family.”_

“ _Again, there is little to tell.”_

_She doubted that. She had a feeling a lot of Kyoya’s issues went back to his family, even more so after seeing what his father did at the fair that day. She’d told him off for it later, but at the time, no one had done anything about what his father did._

_Still, that was why he didn’t want to say anything, wasn’t it? His father was abusive, both physically and emotionally, berating Kyoya the way he did, and Kyoya had defended him before, like that situation was somehow right when it wasn’t._

_She’d thought she understood him some that day at the mall, but she still didn’t know him. The more she saw of him—and the others, too—showed her that these rich bastards had their problems, too. “Still, you haven’t gotten everything you wanted, have you? Your father hasn’t announced who he’s naming heir yet, so there’s still—”_

“ _The Ootori Group was facing a hostile takeover from Tamaki’s one time fiancée. I used my own money to buy them out first. I own the majority shares, but I let him have the managing interest.”_

_The look on Kyoya’s face then honestly scared her, and she wasn’t often cowed by the shadow king, not anymore. Still, the menace in his voice and how cold it was almost hurt even though it wasn’t directed at her. His hatred of his father seemed so strong and so clear, and she felt almost wrong for hearing them._

“ _You see?” Kyoya asked, his expression returning more to the one he used as a host. “I have accomplished all I set out to do.”_

_She nodded, feeling a bit shaken and maybe even sick. “You did.”_

“ _And now...” Kyoya set down his cup. “There does seem little point in continuing. I got what I wanted, what they told me I’d never have, and what I’d even started to believe I might not get.”_

“ _You just need a new goal, that’s all.”_

_He gave her a withering look that suggested she was an idiot as he rose and walked away. She sat back and grimaced, shaking her head at how unreasonable he was._

* * *

If she’d only known then that it was the beginning of the end, of just how much it was all going to crumble, she’d have gone after him, she’d have fought to keep him there until she’d really understood and helped him, but she hadn’t.

She’d let him go, and after that, he got more and more distant from the club, from his friends, even Tamaki. At the end, his grades had slipped, and he didn’t seem to care. It shouldn’t have surprised anyone when he disappeared after graduation. They’d had enough warning.

And yet they _were_ shocked.

He’d left.

He had done it in typical shadow king fashion, with everything arranged. They’d all gotten their letters at about the same time, and while each was slightly personalized, they were similar enough to where everyone got the same message.

_Don’t look for me. Don’t try and find me. I won’t let you. I’m done._

And with those words, Kyoya Ootori dropped out of everyone’s lives. Word broke a while later that the Ootori group’s major stockholder had sold all his shares. Kyoya had cut ties with his family as well, and though Tamaki dragged them all to see Kyoya’s small army of bodyguards, those men seemed more shaken than anyone, as Kyoya had somehow managed to arrange all of this without their notice.

Seeing Tachibana’s face made it clear—Kyoya was gone.

And he wasn’t coming back.


	2. Unreasonable Requests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haruhi's work gets complicated by a difficult request.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Putting in chapter ends after one's written a bit is difficult. I had grouped some of these scenes with what is the first chapter, but I wanted that separate, so... I ended up adding a bit to this section, and I'm not sure I like it, but... I do love the emails still. That didn't change.

* * *

“Did I make a mistake?”

Haruhi looked at herself in the mirror. She seemed like a business professional in the mirror, every bit the lawyer she’d intended to be, and she could hear her father now, telling her just how much she looked like her mother and how proud of her he was, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. _She_ was wrong. She felt like a giant hypocrite. She was just going through the motions, a little girl playing dress up, not really a lawyer.

Oh, she knew what she was doing, she understood the law and her job, but she didn’t feel like a real lawyer despite her experience. She’d been at work at this firm for months now, had successfully closed cases. She was doing her job, and she’d done it well from what people said, but somehow it didn’t feel right, didn’t feel _real._

She caught herself feeling it again and again, and she also had the same question over and over. Was this how Kyoya felt? Was it what made him leave? This feeling?

Or was she reading too much into that one failed conversation?

She needed to get past this, to overcome that voice. Having the shadow king as the voice in her head was bad enough. Anyone else would call it a nightmare, and it was, in some ways. He had the look and the voice that struck fear into the hearts of many. She used to have terrible dreams about her debt climbing higher and higher.

She almost wished she had that dream instead of this gnawing doubt that everything she’d ever worked for was a giant mistake. She was a lawyer, like her mother, like she’d always wanted to be, but maybe that wasn’t what she really wanted?

No, it was. She had always wanted it, and she still did, she just didn’t know what to do now that she had it. That was all. It wasn’t the same as not wanting it. It was only that she didn’t know what she wanted next, right? She needed her new goal.

Had Kyoya ever found his? Was that why he disappeared? Or had he become so lost that he couldn’t take it anymore?

She shook her head. She didn’t want to believe that. Kyoya was strong. He’d find some path for himself no matter what.

She took a deep breath and looked at her hair, frowning. Maybe that was it. Sure, it was a bit shallow and superficial, but changing her hair was a much easier fix than a career. She could try that. It might not change anything, and she doubted it would, but she’d still feel better about making the attempt, right?

She grimaced. Maybe there was some way she could change up what she was doing. The law firm didn’t just do one kind of law, so she might be able to find another one that suited her better if she wasn’t happy here.

She could still do this. Her choice was to be a lawyer, and she was still finding her way. Nothing wrong with that. It was to be expected. She wasn’t being patient enough with herself. She supposed that shouldn’t surprise her. She’d had a goal and been so focused on it, and at first in the host club she’d just been annoyed that it seemed to push her further and further from her path, but she’d learned to _enjoy_ the path, too.

That was what she needed now. A way to enjoy what she had.

She closed her eyes, sighing. “I’m sorry, Kyoya-senpai. I should have told you that, but… I didn’t understand it back then. I only barely understand it now.”

* * *

“I don’t really have to do this, do I?”

“Yes, you do. Otherwise this whole deal falls apart, and our client will be very, very angry, and we will likely lose their entire business. You have to do it.”

Haruhi shook her head. “You know if you were offering a fair contract in the first place, you wouldn’t be having this problem.”

“It is a fair contract.”

Haruhi shook her head. She knew better than to believe that. While she’d always believed that working for a law firm that did business with the Ootori group would mean working with Kyoya before he disappeared, he was no longer with them. She hadn’t seen him, no one had, but she knew that only made it more likely that they were playing dirty. From what she’d heard, Kyoya’s father had only gotten worse since he left.

“I don’t even understand,” her supervisor said, shaking her head. “He’s a reclusive artist who has a bunch of cats. He shouldn’t be able to see any flaws in the contract’s terms.”

“Maybe he has a good lawyer.”

“I doubt it.”

Haruhi shook her head as the other woman left. She took the contract in her hands. She knew they’d said she should go in person and get it signed, but she doubted that would happen without a few major changes, recluse or not, and she wasn’t driving out there and wasting her time.

She read it over, made the minimum of changes that should be made, knowing it wasn’t likely to get her any points around here, but the Ootoris had to make _some_ concessions, and sent the document through their secure email. She made notes on other changes she thought might be necessary and was still in the middle of them when she got notified she had a new email.

She opened it and found a short message.

_Better._

_But still completely unacceptable._

The artist didn’t sign his name or anything, and somehow she found herself smiling as she saw his words. She made a few more adjustments and sent the next version on to him, knowing that if she kept making changes, she’d have to send it back to the Ootoris for approval. Most of what she did was clarify points with less vague wording that could be twisted—something she thought Kyoya’s father would do—and made it harder for them to abuse, but that might not be enough.

The email notification came again.

_You need to rethink your definition of ‘acceptable.’_

She smiled again. She was enjoying her work today. _I can send you a dictionary if you’d like. This is a reasonable contract per the original outline of your agreement._

_Amusing, but as I actually never agreed to the agreement, you’re wasting your time. Give the dictionary to your client and tell them to look up a very simple word: No._

She sat back in her chair, not sure why this guy had her laughing. She should be more annoyed about the waste of her time and worried about her job over losing this contract, but she kept smiling like an idiot.

_I’d like to discuss your side of the agreement with you since I wasn’t part of the original team making it. Would you be willing to do that?_

That should allow her a chance to salvage the deal if it was at all possible. Once she knew what the artist wanted, she could find a way to get that from the Ootoris, who were likely to just throw money at the guy until he agreed.

_No. I don’t have any interest in selling my art to them. I said as much before, but you people don’t listen. I won’t change my mind. I don’t need their money, and I don’t need the fame if that’s what you’d offer next. I’m quite content here with my cats. They are all I need._

She tried to picture Kyoya’s father reading that response and giggled to herself. Her secretary gave her a look and she shrugged at him, knowing he’d never understand.

_What are their names?_

_That’s classified information._

_You paint pictures of them. How is it classified when you used their names in the titles?_

_They were changed to protect the innocent._

Haruhi almost fell out of her chair laughing. For some reason, she heard it in Kyoya’s voice and it was ten times funnier than it would have been, and it shouldn’t even have been that funny in the first place. Clearly she needed to go home.

Instead, she sent him four more revisions, each of which he rejected.

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Haruhi told her supervisor. “I don’t think that there is any way he will agree to this contract. I’ve tried several different versions of this contract, but he’s adamant. He doesn’t want to sell. He doesn’t want to do these commissions.”

“The Ootori group won’t accept that.”

Haruhi had figured as much, but she also didn’t see this artist giving in to them, either. On the one hand, she admired it, but on the other hand, she knew it wasn’t going to work. Kyoya hadn’t told her that much about her family, but if they made him and judging from what she’d seen of his father, she didn’t figure they’d take his refusal lightly. This would go badly for him, she was sure of that, but she didn’t know any way of fixing it.

“It’s his art. He doesn’t have to sell it.”

“Are you really going to tell the Ootori group that? If you think you can, I hope you can accept no longer having a job.”

Haruhi grimaced. That would have been scarier coming from Kyoya’s father, but she didn’t deny the threat. She would lose her job over this, and she’d only barely started in this division of the firm. She couldn’t give up now. She might still be struggling with what she did after reaching her goals, after getting what she wanted, but she wasn’t done.

She could find what she needed. She still had time—as long as she held onto her job.

“Well? Do you have any suggestions?”

Haruhi didn’t. Telling the Ootoris to give up was basically like suicide even if she didn’t think they’d just kill her outright like that. Still, that didn’t mean she had another solution. She didn’t know the artist well, but she had seen how stubborn he was already. He wasn’t about to give in, either. He wouldn’t sell. He wouldn’t sign with the Ootori group.

“I told you to go to him in person. Did you?”

“No.”

“Then why are you still standing here? Go.”

Haruhi frowned. “It’s not going to to change his mind. He’s dead set against selling. He won’t take the contract. I’ve made it more favorable than I think the Ootori group would want, and he won’t sign it. It’s not going to happen even if I see him in person.”

“You really plan on telling them that you didn’t even try?”

Haruhi sighed. “Fine. I’ll go.”

“Good. See you tomorrow.”

“What?”

Her supervisor smiled rather cruelly. “It’s a long drive from here.”

* * *

“I’m not sure any job is worth this,” Haruhi said, looking up at the gate. She’d checked and double checked her directions, not wanting to get lost on her long drive. Her supervisor wasn’t kidding, and she wasn’t looking forward to the drive back. She might even need to find a hotel before the night fell. She should have found one sooner, but she’d been too worried about getting here.

Now that she was here, isolated as she was, she regretted that choice. She was pretty far from anywhere at this point. She felt eyes on her and stopped, looking back to see more than one pair of feline eyes staring at her. She tried not to let them get to her. This place, while looking like a shrine at least on the outside, was not owned by anyone in Nekozawa family, so she wanted to believe she was safe enough, but it still felt a bit strange here, and the cats weren’t helping.

Also, she knew she was almost certainly going to get arrested for trespassing. Or worse.

She pushed open the gate and walked up toward the house almost hidden in the shadows of the trees. She didn’t want to drive the car up, even if she would have a better chance of getting away if she did. She shifted her briefcase in her hand and stopped to knock on the door.

The silence stretched on and on as she waited, and she jumped, letting out a small shriek when something brushed up against her leg. She should have expected a cat. Damn it, now she looked and felt stupid.

“Of course you were lying about being a cat person,” came a voice from some speaker she couldn’t see. She assumed he was on the other side of the door, and he must have some kind of camera, but it was concealed well—she had no idea where it was. She could hear a sort of robotic voice, and he could clearly see her since he’d seen her jump when she was spooked, but she couldn’t see even a peephole. “It figures you would if you wanted something.”

“I wasn’t lying. I do like cats. I was just startled.” She looked down at the kitten who seemed to be ignoring the fact that it just gave her a heart attack. “She’s beautiful. A Burmese?”

“Why did you come?”

“To discuss the contract, of course. I told you I wasn’t done yet, but you stopped answering my emails.” Looking around, she had to wonder how he got email service out here. She knew she kept losing cell service on the way here, so… how did that even work?

“I don’t want anything from your clients. You came here for nothing. Now go.”

Haruhi had planned for that. Kind of. She swallowed. “Not without using the restroom.”

“Excuse me?”

“It was a long drive, I had to stay hydrated, and I need to borrow your bathroom,” she said, which wasn’t entirely untrue. “Unless you’re that heartless and want to humiliate me by making me go on the side of your driveway or something.”

“And if I was that heartless?”

“You’ll regret it?”

“That doesn’t sound very convincing.”

She shrugged. What kind of threat could she make against a recluse like this? “Well, I do know the head of a yakuza family, some really prestigious martial art masters, and a couple of pranksters who would have a lot of fun doing terrible things to this place, but I am hoping I don’t need to call any of them and you’ll be a gentleman.”

“There’s no cellular service here.”

“Then how do you get emails?”

“Magic.”

She started laughing again, and to her surprise, the door opened. She almost tripped over the cat as it rushed inside, but she stepped in and looked around, frowning at the darkness.

“You’ll find it ahead of you on the left.”

She nodded and then stopped dead in her tracks, turning back to the voice which was no longer at all disguised by some hidden speaker. “Kyoya?”


	3. Complications and Cats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haruhi's attempt to get the truth is waylaid by cats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, there was a part where I said this got odd. This is it, to a point, but... the idea wouldn't leave me alone, so I kept it. I like the cats.

* * *

“I beg your pardon?”

Haruhi grimaced, though she swore she couldn’t deny the similarities between that voice and the one she’d heard—and sometimes had nightmares about when it came to her debt increasing—for so long at the host club. Sure, they were both older now, and he was definitely not wearing an Ouran uniform—not that she’d never seen Kyoya in traditional garb of some kind or other in their various cosplays—but she swore she knew that voice. The shape of his face was familiar, too, though he appeared to be wearing old fashioned sunglasses—the lenses were very dark—and the hair reminded her of those few times they’d gotten Kyoya into some kind of dress. Or historical cosplay, except it was decidedly lighter than Kyoya’s.

He could have been giving her an evil lord glare, but she’d never know behind those glasses.

“Isn’t hard to see in here with those on?”

“If your need for the restroom is as extreme as you claim, you should go use it. Otherwise you can leave. I didn’t spend all this time cultivating a reputation as a reclusive artist to throw it away chit-chatting with the first person to come to my door.”

She shook her head. “You haven’t changed, Kyoya-senpai.”

He shook his head, bending down to pick up a different cat, this one black, that had come up to him and was nuzzling against his ankles. “I believe you are rather confused. You spoke like you were the lawyer earlier, only now you’re speaking as a school girl. Is this how lawyers typically act? Hmm, very curious, would you not agree, Mephistopheles?”

She blinked. “You named that cat after—”

“Names are always changed to protect the innocent,” he said, and the cat started purring. He leaned his face against its fur and smiled, looking nothing at all like Kyoya for a moment. “Is it your intention to stare at me all day? Because I do have other things to attend to and I know I was never unclear about my position on this matter.”

She had a headache. “You remind me a bit of Tamaki trying to pretend he wasn’t stalking me that time you all followed me to the supermarket.”

“I do all my shopping online. I don’t enjoy crowds. I can’t think of when I have ever willingly entered a supermarket.” He walked away, cat in his arms, a few others trailing behind him, and she blinked, trying to make sense of this. Was Kyoya really trying to convince her that it wasn’t him? Or was she completely wrong and it wasn’t him?

She didn’t even know what to think.

She made her way down to the restroom. She wanted answers. Kyoya as good as died in some people’s opinions, and doing that to all of them was cruel. Tamaki never recovered from it, and the others had scattered as well. The twins were still the twins, but they’d taken Kyoya’s actions as another reason not to let anyone close and had closed themselves off again. She didn’t know what Mori thought of it, but she’d seen their oldest member crying and it wasn’t an act. Tamaki might have been the king, even “Daddy,” but it was the shadow king and “Mother” who made the whole thing work.

She looked up at the mirror. No, she wasn’t leaving here before she had answers, no matter what it took.

* * *

She followed a cat through the house, wandering from room to room in confusion. Nothing about this place was at all like she’d picture for Kyoya. Each room seemed to be decorated differently, with no real sense of style, as though the person doing so had just grabbed whatever random element pleased them and stuck it in there. She’d expect something like this from Tamaki, not Kyoya.

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe this guy only sounded like Kyoya.

The hair could be a wig, but it _was_ the wrong color. The glasses that were so dark were an obvious affectation, not real like Kyoya actually needed.

The white cat ducked into the room at the end of the hall, and Haruhi slid the door open, stopping with a gasp as she looked up at the mural spanning three walls of the room. The piece was absolutely stunning, even for being only part-finished. She knew that she wasn’t much of a judge of art, but this was something else. She’d never seen something so beautiful, something that seemed to tug at her emotions even as she stared in disbelief.

He stopped mid-brushstroke. “You were supposed to leave.”

“This is incredible.” She understood now why the Ootori group was after his art. Looking at these pieces, she felt like she should be standing in a museum full of great past masters. “This is what they want to buy, isn’t it?”

“Or something very much like it, I suppose, though this piece is never leaving this room,” he said, taking up some more paint and making a new mark against the canvas.

“Why not? It’s amazing.”

He shook his head. “I do not make art to share it with anyone.”

“What? Really?” Haruhi didn’t understand. Wasn’t that the point of art? “How can you not want to share it? It’s beautiful, and it makes me feel… I don’t even know what the right word is to call it, but it makes me _feel._ How can you ignore that?”

“I’m not, but it wasn’t for anyone else.” He adjusted his glasses with the back of the paintbrush. “I don’t do this for money. I don’t need it. And I’m not interested in the fame, either. You can tell your clients that. Now go.”

She frowned. She knew Kyoya selling off his shares in his family’s company probably made him another fortune, which allowed him to live comfortably, so he wouldn’t need money, and it didn’t look like he spent excessively, either. That part she supposed she could understand. “How would they even know about your art if you hadn’t sold any of it?”

He went to the paints, mixing a new color, a violet that reminded her of Kyoya’s eyes. “An unfortunate mistake. As thanks for a favor, I gave someone a small portrait. I did not know that they would become so popular. I did not expect or want it, but after she showed one person, many others wanted them. I only gave them to one person I considered a bit of a friend. Now I cannot seem to get away from those who want more from me.”

She grimaced. “Kyoya—”

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

She supposed it must seem weird to him, since he went by something else as an artist, and this deed had to be in another name or his family would have found him by now. “Because you can put on as many odd clothes as you like and try to pretend you’re not Kyoya Ootori, but to anyone who knows you well, it’s obvious. Your voice hasn’t changed that much—a bit more mature and maybe a bit less intimidating for all it’s still compelling—and I’ve seen you in too many cosplays to be fooled by wigs or other clothes. Plus the kanji you sign your artwork with can mean other things, but it does include the word for ‘shadow.’”

“I fail to see why that last bit makes me someone I’m not,” he said, setting aside his brush and picking up another cat. “And you do not, in fact, know me well at all. Now I will ask you to leave. As you can see, I am quite busy, and you are not welcome. In fact, you concern me as you seem to want to persist in this delusion of yours. Please leave before I must summon the authorities.”

She shook her head. “If you only knew how much you worried everyone and—”

“Leave. Now.”

She didn’t want to. Kyoya had too much to answer for after all these years. “You hurt them. Deliberately. Everyone always said you were a selfish bastard, but I never believed it until you disappeared. I’d seen you show a remarkable amount of patience and even kindness, and you took some of the worst ways in the world to show it at times, but you did, so this? This just angers me. You can’t pretend it was nothing, what you did.”

“You know nothing.” He looked at the black cat again, setting down the tabby and picking it up instead. “Would you like to introduce your big brother to the annoying lady? Oh, you would? I see. Very well. Go get him.”

“Is that your idea of a threat? You did much better when we were in high school.”

He let the cat down and faced her. “If I did, why are you not worried now? You are alone with me. Do you even know where you are in this house? Do you think no harm can come to you in this strange world of art and cats?”

“You made a similar threat before and it didn’t scare me then.”

“I keep telling you I’m not who you think I am.” He walked to the door, leaving her behind again. She went to chase after him only to stop in her tracks.

“Is that a panther?”

Despite claiming he was not the shadow king, his laughter sounded exactly like Kyoya’s as he disappeared around the corner ahead of her.

The panther sat down in front of the door.

“Uh… nice kitty?”

* * *

“You weren’t kidding about the cell service.”

“No, I was not,” he agreed, and she sighed, putting her phone back in her pocket again. She’d checked for service off and on for the past hour, which was how she knew it had been an actual hour and not just an exaggeration of time brought on by her inability to move. “I still want you to leave.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “And I still want you to admit the truth.”

“There is nothing to admit. You do not know me, you will not get what you want for your clients, and while it has amused me to see you so scared of Chi, it has become boring. I’d like you to go now.” He looked down at the panther, who was now bumping its head against his hand.

“You call that thing Chi? Wait, isn’t Chi a girl in that anime?”

“What anime?” His face was completely guileless when he looked at her. Then he turned to the big cat. “Do I look like someone who watches anime, Chi?”

It was Mephistopheles who answered, jumping down out of nowhere and scaring the life out of her as he hissed at her.

Kyoya clucked his tongue. “That’s not nice. She is a guest, however unwanted.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“You should be grateful that Chi doesn’t share Mephistopheles’ opinion of you. Now you should go.” Kyoya turned and walked away, the big cat following him as he did. Haruhi let out a breath of relief, though her comfort was short lived when she saw the black cat still staring at her. Kyoya was right. That cat didn’t like her. At all.

She forced a smile. “All right. I’m going.”

He continued to watch her as she walked toward the door. She didn’t want to let the cat or Kyoya chase her away, but she wasn’t an idiot, either. That big cat couldn’t be that tame, could it? Wasn’t it dangerous to have something like that in the house? What if Kyoya gave it some kind of order to attack? Or if it chose to?

She started toward the door. She wanted to talk to Kyoya, wanted to make him stop the bad lies and the worse wig. She wasn’t fooled, and she didn’t want to leave. She couldn’t. Not like this. Not when she’d finally seen him again. He owed them all answers, and she wanted to get them—not just for her own sake, but for everyone’s. Kyoya had hurt the entire host club by disappearing, and she couldn’t let that go like it was nothing.

She would have to come back, she supposed. Maybe if she had one of the others, she could do more to get him to talk. She wondered if it would do any good to ask Mori. On his own, he might not be enough, since he still barely spoke. She might need more than him, and it wasn’t like she could ask the twins.

She wasn’t asking Tamaki. That was too awkward after how they ended, and for Kyoya to split from him as he did, she thought there were more issues there than anyone had known.

She went to the gate, stopping to look back at the house. The stillness was eerie, and she didn’t know how he coped with this much silence. Maybe that was why he had all the cats.

Then again, if it was Kyoya, he probably coped better with the solitude than anyone she’d ever known. She liked to think of herself as independent, but she hadn’t had much choice about that. Kyoya carved out his independence on purpose, more like a large jagged scar, a looming shadow, than her own natural bubble.

She shook her head. Listen to her being stupid. She shut the gate behind her and looked at her car.

Time to head home.

* * *

He stood with the black cat in his arms, the panther next to his legs as he looked over the house. She was gone, he’d watched her go, but that had changed nothing. He knew what must be done. Some of the arrangements were already in place, but they were not enough.

“I suppose we’ll have to burn it, Mephistopheles. We have no other choice.”

Next to him, Chi gave a low growl that passed for her version of a purr. He sighed, taking off the obnoxious glasses.

“I know. You liked it here. So did I, but nothing lasts forever, does it, my old friend?”

He heard the footstep before the voice, but she still managed to get closer than anticipated without his knowledge.

“It doesn’t,” she said, yanking the long wig off his head hard enough it wanted to drag him down with it. Mephistopheles jumped down and hissed at her, but she didn’t let him frighten her. “Though you know that better than anyone, don’t you?”

“I told you to leave.” He turned to go back into the house, but she surprised him by pulling a Tamaki and tackling him, knocking him to the ground with unexpected force.

“Why?” Her eyes shone bright with what might well be tears. “Why the hell did you do this to all of us?”

“Whatever reasons I have, there’s no point in giving them. I never wanted to explain, nor do I have any expectation of forgiveness. I simply want you to go.”

“I can’t leave. If I do, you’ll disappear again. Admit it. You were going to burn this place down and disappear again.”

That was all true. No point in denying it. “Yes.”

“Damn it,” she said, hitting his chest. “Why would you do that? Why would you—”

“Because you found me. And if you did, so will they, and I won’t allow that to happen. I _can’t.”_

 


	4. Semi-Disastrous Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haruhi's attempt at confrontation gets... complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt that it wasn't right to leave things without at least part of this explanation, though admittedly, there's not much. that last line... It said it was the end of a chapter and wasn't about to be disagreed with no matter what I did.

* * *

Haruhi stopped, staring down at Kyoya in disbelief. She hadn’t expected that. She didn’t know what to think. Sure, nothing had gone like she thought it would since she got here, but the way Kyoya had spoken just now tore at her. She’d never heard such raw emotion from him, ever. Kyoya was always so calm and collected, and even when he was clearly annoyed with Tamaki or the twins, he’d been controlled. This wasn’t a Kyoya who was in control. He was not calm, not in control, and he seemed to know it as much as she did, because his expression had shifted from one of near anguish to one of shame to be covered quickly by annoyance.

He shoved her, but instead of getting up and demanding that she leave, he flipped their positions, leaning over her, his dark eyes on her like they’d been so many years ago when he’d held her like this in the beach house.

“You never learn, do you?” He demanded, pushing her hands down. “I could do anything to you here. I could even go so far as to kill you to keep my secret.”

His breath on her skin made her shiver a little, but she refused to be afraid. She shook her head. “You wouldn’t do it then, and you won’t now. You’re not that person. You use fear when you have to, you know how effective it is, but it’s still just a _tool._ It’s not you.”

“You don’t even know me now.”

“You keep saying that, but I don’t believe it. If you were that determined to hurt me, you could have. Instead, you tried to pretend you’re someone you’re not. You even let me in when you didn’t have to.”

“Like I wanted you to debase yourself on my lawn.”

She couldn’t help it. She laughed, and for a moment, Kyoya’s expression softened. He let go of her and sat back, mirroring his actions from that night again. She watched him, wondering how different things might have been if Tamaki had not interrupted them and jumped to stupid conclusions right before the thunderstorm.

Would she have seen Kyoya’s other side then? His kindness as he comforted her?

“Stop staring at me.”

She grimaced. “Sorry. I was just getting a better look now that you’re not wearing that ridiculous wig. You look… I can’t say you haven’t changed, but you’re not… you look older.”

That almost seemed to get a smile from him, or at least his lips twitched. “That is to be expected.”

She wanted to smack herself for being an idiot. “I know. I just… It’s different. I mean, I recognized you before, but this… is more you. I couldn’t believe you’d wear your hair like that willingly. I didn’t think you enjoyed it much when we had to cosplay.”

“Strictly speaking, I suppose I didn’t. It very much depended on the outfit.”

“You could have stopped some of them. I bet you did.”

“Yes, with Tamaki it was a never ending case of choosing my battles.”

She frowned. That was a statement with so much weight she didn’t know that she wanted to ask about it. Would he tell her that he’d hated Tamaki all along? That none of his friendship with him was real, all just an act, a way to use Tamaki and the others to get money?

“Which brings us back to the original problem,” Kyoya said, and she blinked, startled back into the moment. “What am I going to do about you?”

“You’re not really going to try and scare me again, are you?” Haruhi didn’t know why he’d want to, not when he knew it wouldn’t work. “I don’t even know that you ever liked it even when you were the shadow king. You’re good at moving things behind the scenes, but wasn’t that always a role that was forced on you? Why would you want to keep doing it?”

“Do you see anyone here forcing me to be anything right now?”

She swallowed. “Um. No. Unless we count the devil cat.”

Mephistopheles hissed at her again, and Kyoya reached over to pet him, scratching his ears and getting a purr from the cat as he tried to get even closer to Kyoya. “Is that what you believe he is? Perhaps some form of shinigami?”

“He’s your pet, and it’s adorable, but that’s not really the point, is it?”

Kyoya looked at her, raising a brow. “Adorable?”

Haruhi flushed. That was not a word she ever would have thought she’d use for the rich bastard who seemed to delight in adding to her debt, but there was something to this unexpected gentle side Kyoya showed with his cats that was actually adorable, and she couldn’t find a better word for it. The affection was clear on both sides, which she never would have thought of him.

“You are a fool,” he said, rising. “Once again misunderstanding something very simple.”

“What?”

“A cat is very clear on what it wants from you, be it food, attention, or affection, and quite often those latter two are merely a pretense to get the first, but with a cat, one always knows where one stands. They use you, and you permit it. The relationship is clear from the beginning and not subject to change.”

“That’s not really what you think—”

“What I think is that it is past time you left.”

She shook her head. If she did that, he’d burn this place and disappear, right? She couldn’t let that happen. “No.”

* * *

“No? You intend to move in here as some kind of squatter? I assure you, that will not go over well with this house’s current residents.”

Haruhi tried not to roll her eyes. She knew Kyoya knew what she wanted. Him playing obtuse about it was only to annoy her, right? She was supposed to get frustrated and leave, but that was what he wanted, and she couldn’t do that. She knew him well enough to know that he would leave if she gave him half a chance, and while he couldn’t do it in an instant, she knew Kyoya well enough to know that he had a plan in place for this. It wouldn’t take him that long.

“You know what I mean. I want answers.”

“I have none to give you.”

That made her want to hit him again. “Like hell you don’t. You have years worth of answers. There are so many questions—where did you go? Why did you go? What have you been doing all this time? Were you really here all along? Did you travel? Some of those other rooms make it look like you must have, but maybe you didn’t. Maybe those rooms are a front. They didn’t look like you at all. And I could go on. There are more things I could ask. You know that.”

He shook his head. “Asking is not the same as getting. Even us rich bastards know that.”

She grimaced. He would know of her habit of calling them that. Still, that didn’t change anything. “Please. You disappeared. And if I leave now, I know you’ll do it again. I want to know why. You can give me that much, can’t you?”

“I already said all I need to—”

“No. Not by a long shot. So just tell me why already. You know I won’t go until you do.”

He closed his eyes, letting out a breath in frustration. “It should be obvious, you know. Then again, you can be quite dense and never seem to read enough through the lines even when you do see past the smaller things.”

“Excuse me?”

“You work for a law firm that has the Ootori family as a client, yes?”

“Yes, but that’s not why I took the position with them, and it’s not like I expected to work with them, either. I was in the other branch first, but I...” Haruhi swallowed. She didn’t want to admit it. “I wasn’t sure that was the kind of law I wanted to do after I started, and when they asked me to cover a vacant position in the other department, I decided to try it so I could see if it was a better fit. I...”

“What?”

“I got what I wanted,” she whispered. “And then… I didn’t know what to do with it.”

Kyoya nodded, but he turned and walked away from her. She forced herself up and after him, having to catch hold of the robe over his kimono. He looked back at her, and she braced herself for the evil lord glare that never came.

“I wanted wine for this conversation.”

She blinked. “Oh.”

“Don’t you?”

She wanted things to make sense again, and Kyoya kept confusing the hell out of her, but she wouldn’t say that. She looked at him and forced a nod as she followed him into a room she hadn’t seen earlier. This one screamed Kyoya, with its simplicity and classic elegance, every bit a room fit for a shadow king. She was sure it was all still designer, from the bookshelves to the small coaster he gave her before revealing one of those hidden liquor compartments and pouring them each a glass.

She watched him do it, still a bit shocked.

He sat down, leaning against the chair and reminding her of his cats as he did. The pose was pure businessman, but the eclectic pattern of his outfit warred with that image. He reached over and picked up a set of regular glasses from another hidden compartment, this one on the side table. That seemed oddly fitting, all these secret places inside secret places, so like Kyoya. She bet he had them all through this house.

That made her smile, and he looked over at her with a frown. “Something amusing? I would hardly think there could be anything under the circumstances.”

“You say that, but you were laughing not that long ago.”

“That was before you made it impossible to go back. If you would have just listened, accepted the ‘no’ and left, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are now.”

“I couldn’t. Not when I knew what I saw. I knew it was you, Kyoya. How could I ignore that?”

“I told you I didn’t want any of you to look for me or to find me. I made myself quite clear.”

She knew he’d left those letters behind. She’d seen them all. They’d gathered together and looked at them and been unable to accept it, even though they all knew that was Kyoya’s handwriting. Tamaki kept insisting someone had forced him to do it, had the hardest time believing Kyoya left them by choice. Seeing him finally understand that it was true, how heartbroken he’d been, they’d all wanted to hate Kyoya for what he’d done.

And yet somehow, she’d never managed to do it. She couldn’t hate him.

She’d blamed herself more than she’d ever blamed him, which was stupid, wasn’t it? He’d chosen this, hadn’t he? He’d made it clear he had no intention of letting anyone from before know that he was here, now, alive and well.

Very well, judging from his appearance. He was in good health, from what she could see, and the years had been good to him. He’d filled out, a lot less lankier than he used to be. She’d blame it on the clothes, since the traditional garb could hide many things, but his current pose showed off plenty. His sleeve had fallen down, showing off his arm, not that she hadn’t seen some when he was painting. Now, though, thanks to how he sat, she could see his legs, from his knee down to his toes.

Damn it, was she staring?

“Why the clothes?”

“You’re asking that now?”

“Kind of hard not to,” she admitted, though she knew seeing Kyoya with his feet bare shouldn’t be that shocking. She definitely did not need to stare. She had seen all of the host club in less, after all, so what Kyoya wore now was not that strange.

He smiled slightly as he sipped from his wine. “I see. If you wish to flatter yourself, you shouldn’t. The ‘eccentric artist’ is all anyone knows when they come here. It was not merely developed for your benefit.”

“I’m glad, actually, because it didn’t fool me for a second.”

“Oh?”

“I heard your voice when I read the emails.”

“Curious.” He didn’t say anything after that, slowly and steadily finishing his wine. He rose and went back to the cupboard, but the second time, he poured himself something much, much stronger. Maybe she shouldn’t have told him that, but it _was_ true. His emails had shown her that it was him in only a few words.

Was that why she’d come? Not the threat of losing her job over this contract, but because she knew that it was Kyoya? No, that was foolish. She’d noticed the similarities, but that wasn’t enough. She hadn’t even connected the kanji at that point. She did that later. Here. After hearing him speak.

She hadn’t known she was going to see Kyoya. Nothing would have prepared her for that. Who would have thought that Kyoya Ootori was spending his days as a reclusive artist living with a bunch of cats. He was supposed to have some huge business empire by now. That, or a crime syndicate.

This didn’t seem like him at all.

“Why?” Haruhi would end up a broken record at this rate, but she had to ask. She had to know.

“I already told you.”

“You didn’t, actually. You told me I should already know, but then you started talking about me working for a law firm that your family uses. That’s not an explanation.”

“Isn’t it?” Kyoya asked, looking at her. He was frustrated, and she felt a bit dumb for not seeing what he expected her to know, but she still didn’t understand. “Do you really think that was an accident?”

“My law firm? I applied to several. I chose that one.”

“Did you? Or did it choose you?” Kyoya downed his drink in a single shot. “I don’t think it was an accident. Not as much your choice as you thought it was. I am very certain that my father is keeping tabs on you and everyone else from the host club. Anyone I might ever have been connected to, actually.”

She nodded. “I suppose he would wonder what happened to you as much as we do.”

Kyoya snorted. His grip on his empty cup had turned his hand white, and she thought that it might break at any second. “Exactly how dense are you?”

“Kyoya—”

“Don’t mistake his interest for paternal care. That’s no more real than Tamaki’s delusion that he was your ‘daddy.’ My father is not interested in finding his long lost son and having a heartfelt family reunion. He wants to find me because as long as I am alive, I am a threat to him.”


	5. Sidesteps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyoya remembers a little. His conflict with Haruhi continues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kyoya's flashback was part of the reason I was interested in this story. I had a lot of thoughts about his childhood and how that impacted him.
> 
> Though it did change the intended path of the conversation and part of what I meant to have them discuss didn't happen, but Haruhi found a way to make it possible to finish it later.

* * *

“ _Why did you give that child anything?”_

_Kyoya tried not to flinch when he heard his father’s voice. He’d known the entire way home that his father was angry with him,_ _not that it was anything new. He wasn’t sure he’d ever done anything that pleased him, from being born to today. He wasn’t supposed to be here, so much younger than his siblings, an unnecessary afterthought, an accident, and he was always too childish for any of them except Fuyumi who kept trying to tell him it was okay to be a kid while he was a kid._

_He’d still more or less given up playing years ago._

“ _Answer me._ _Why did you do it?”_

_Kyoya knew his reason would never be good enough for his father. “She was crying. Her mother is sick and—”_

“ _Have you learned nothing?” His father demanded. “You do not gain anything by helping those who do not help themselves. Charity only encourages weakness.”_

_That word again. Kyoya knew any time that word came up in connection with him, he was in trouble. He tried not to show his fear. That was weakness, too, and all his father ever told him was that there was no place in the Ootori group for weakness._

“ _It wasn’t—”_

“ _There is no place for excuses._ _I’ve told you that before.”_

“ _Yes.”_

“ _If you want to have a place in the Ootori family, you have to be strong. A leader doesn’t tolerate weakness. He does not excuse his actions. They are all taken with deliberation and planning. You understand this, don’t you?”_

_Saying something ‘smart’ about how his father had been planning on hitting him since before they left the hospital would only cause more trouble, but Kyoya found himself wanting to say it anyway. What he’d done was not wrong. That girl had seemed so grateful, and it made him want to give her even more than he already had, but he knew his father wouldn’t want him back at the hospital now._

_He might need to be there after the night was over, he was almost sure of that, but his father would not_ _take him there. He would be told to behave like nothing had happened unless he wanted to be “weak” again. Kyoya already knew that he could not allow himself to be seen that way. He was still young. He was not stupid._

_Well, today, maybe, since he’d given that girl a stupid plush from the gift store to comfort her, but he hadn’t thought his father would even notice. He’d paid for it with his own money out of the allotment he got each week, and he was already balancing that budget perfectly, he knew it, so why did one stupid stuffed animal have to mean this much trouble?_

_His father caught him by the back of the neck. “There is no place for weakness in the Ootori Group. Once again you have failed to learn this lesson.”_

_Kyoya pulled away._ _“We do donate to charities, though. This isn’t—”_

_His father backhanded him, and he hit the wall, his vision blurring._

“ _We donate to causes that further our own agenda. I already explained this to you. Charity is only given when it can be of use to us. You behaved like a foolish child, not an Ootori. You think the world’s problems can be solved by giving away toys? You cannot save that girl’s mother. You cannot make promises. Maybe our role in furthering medical research will save her, but what you did is meaningless. It only showed how childish and stupid your thoughts remain.”_

_Kyoya glared at him. Maybe that was true, and he’d known giving her that toy wouldn’t bring her mom back if she died, but that didn’t mean the girl hadn’t gotten something from it._

“ _You have to consider the value of any of your actions. Tell me—was it really worth the cost that you are paying now?”_

_Kyoya shook with anger, wishing he could do something, anything, but sit here and listen to this._

“ _Are you crying? You know better than that.”_

_Kyoya winced, pressing his eyes shut. Yes, he hurt, but he knew better than this. Crying was completely unacceptable. He wasn’t even supposed to do that as a baby, and he wasn’t a baby now. He knew what was coming. He knew better than to cry even when it was over._

“ _I will teach you to be strong. I will purge all this weakness from you. You will learn. You will be strong and worthy of the Ootori name.”_

* * *

“Kyoya-senpai?”

“We are not in school any longer,” he said, dragging himself into the present. He looked down at his empty glass and refilled it, not looking back at her. She was a problem, and he still didn’t know what the hell he was going to do about her. Why the hell had she come here to ruin things?

Well, he’d had some warning. He knew as soon as lawyers for the Ootori group started nosing around his art that his days here were numbered, but even in emailing her, he’d thought he could keep them at bay for longer than this.

“You’re right, but you were still my senpai when you disappeared. It’s… It’s a bit of a hard habit to break, you know?”

He thought of calling her something insulting by twisting some honorific but abandoned the idea. He returned to his chair, pausing to collect the white cat from the floor.

“I don’t suppose you call her ‘Snowball’ or something like that?”

“Only if I paint her,” Kyoya said, moving his glass away from Empress Suiko’s reach as she mewed at him in annoyance. He shook his head at her, taking another sip as he tried to gather his thoughts. He knew Haruhi well enough to know she wouldn’t leave this alone now that she knew he was here. She would be back—if he could even convince her to leave.

“Did you pick art because it was the last thing anyone expected you to do?”

Kyoya almost laughed. “No. Perhaps it might have been better if I had, but I did not.”

True, he used to think of a painting as a metaphor for his existence, the way he was trapped inside a frame not of his own making, the third son who would never rise above his brothers, never exceed anyone’s expectations. Even after he could see himself painting outside the frame after meeting Tamaki, Kyoya had never truly thought of himself as having any sort of artistic ability. He didn’t even dabble in it as a child, not that he’d been allowed much of a chance to play.

“Oh.”

She didn’t understand. He didn’t expect her to. “I was not lying when I said I don’t do it for money or fame. I don’t do it to share it with anyone. Well, the cats are here, I suppose.”

Haruhi shook her head. “I don’t know. It seems like it should be shared. Unless you were faking that one for my benefit, you’ve got real talent.”

“Then I was faking it for your benefit.”

“Liar.”

Kyoya shrugged. Let her believe what she would. It did not matter, not in the long run. His main goal was to get her to leave without returning before he could move the essentials, which was an issue, since he’d acquired more feline companions than he’d ever intended to, and abandoning them was not something he cared to do. Chi, of course, was the main cause for concern. She was not capable of surviving in the wild, that was why he’d given her refuge here, and she was only more dependent on him now that she had been those that kept her as a “pet” before he dealt with them.

“You can’t just go.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand. As usual.”

“Well, no, I don’t, and I did try to ask you about it, but you just stood there staring off into space when you went to pour yourself another glass.”

He had an unfortunate habit of doing that. He was too comfortable on his own, he supposed. His guard had slipped over the last year as he settled into this life, and that actually made it easier for his memories to surface and overwhelm him in ways that he never would have allowed in the past.

Mephistopheles jumped up onto the chair behind him, and he reached over to pet him. If ever there was such a thing as a guard cat, this one had that role.

“I know you got control of his company.”

“Yes. And I could do it again easily enough. He knows this.” Kyoya didn’t bother with a business empire these days, that wasn’t necessary to his life, but he still knew the market well enough, and whenever his savings got lower than he’d like for whatever reason—most often the amount of food it took to sustain Chi and her companions—he did sometimes dabble in it again. He only made enough to put his finances back where he wanted them, though, as it was foolish to do more. He didn’t need to, he’d proved he could win that game, and it actually bored him now, but more than that, too much business acumen always got his father’s attention.

That was the last thing he wanted.

“Are you afraid of him?”

He laughed. “No, not particularly. When you don’t fear death, what hold can men have over you? True, it’s far from ideal, this game we’re now playing, but I don’t do it out of fear.”

“But you said—”

“I am a threat to him while I’m alive, yes. I could take his empire from him if I wanted, and more than that, I know how he operates, all the dirty Ootori secrets he would never want the rest of the world to know.” Kyoya finished his glass. “He fears me. I do not fear him.”

“That’s not what it sounded like.”

Kyoya gave her a grim smile. “Well, I have nothing to fear. You and the others on the other hand… you do.”

* * *

“What?”

“You being so obtuse is tiresome. Honestly, it would be a lot less hassle to kill you,” Kyoya muttered as he rose. He didn’t get himself another drink, though, and that actually worried her. Haruhi had a feeling he saw this conversation as over, and that was not good.

“You can’t leave it at that. You think your father would use us to get to you?”

“Correction—I know he would. He is so paranoid and worried about betrayal that he doesn’t have any way of accepting that I don’t even want to play that game with him, but he thinks I do, so he’s prepared. Any one of you could have a very convenient ‘accident’ or other misfortune at any time. It’s even possible that he’ll resort to it if this game goes on much longer.”

She blinked. “And… you are… okay with that? Using us as pawns?”

“You always were my pawns, from the very first day Tamaki drew up that very foolish notion of a host club. He was an idiot who wanted to be a king and very easy to control.”

“He’d hate hearing you say that.”

“I sincerely hope he’s grown out of moping in corners by now, and if my defection helped that in any way, it was worth it for that alone. One cannot enable people forever, even if they are useful.”

Haruhi didn’t think Kyoya had drunk enough to have gotten mean with it like some people did. He was very likely still in control now, which meant his words, hard as they were to hear, were almost certainly another calculated move. He wanted her to hate him and leave, to be mad enough to not care what he did or where he went, but that wasn’t how it worked—how _she_ worked.

“I don’t believe you.”

“You can leave.”

“No, I mean it. I don’t believe you’d play with our lives that way. You may not be lying about not fearing your father for yourself, but you do think he’ll come after us, and _that_ is why you hide, why you cut off all contact. You were doing it to keep us safe.”

“You are exceptionally delusional. I thought that was Tamaki’s role.”

She fought a bit of laughter at that. It wasn’t appropriate, especially given what Kyoya was doing. He was trying to push her away, she knew that, just like she’d known when he grabbed her that night in the beach house that he wasn’t going to hurt her.

“Kyoya-senpai—”

“I am not your senpai. I am a very irritated man in whose house you’re currently trespassing,” he said, and she supposed that was true, much as she didn’t want to think about it like that. He let her in, once, to use the restroom, and then he’d told her to leave and she hadn’t. She wouldn’t. “You need to leave.”

“Not like this.”

He stared her down, and she felt like crawling under the chair and hiding despite the fact that she was an adult now. “Would you like me to make it worse?”

“I’d like you to stop trying to scare me because it won’t work.”

He looked like he would gladly strangle her, which was both impressive—she’d gotten a reaction out of Kyoya, of all people—and upsetting because that wasn’t the kind of reaction she wanted. She wanted Kyoya to be honest for once. No manipulations, no games, just the truth.

Not that she didn’t know the important part—if she left now, he’d disappear again.

“You know if you do it, your father will find out you were here. Won’t that give him a way to trace things back to you and maybe find the next place you go?”

“No. None of the shell companies can be traced back to the one holding this property.”

“Even so, is this really what you want? To have to keep running for the rest of your life? You say you’re not afraid, but if you do this—”

“You really are stupid. In what world could this possibly be what I want?”

She balled a fist, angry as well. She knew that was true, but he was trying to act like it was nothing that he was going to pack up and leave it all behind. “Exactly my point. You don’t want this, so why are you doing it?”

“I don’t owe you anything.”

“Yes, you do. We all deserved an explanation and—”

“No. You didn’t. That’s not how it works. You think you deserve that, you feel it, but I don’t owe any of you _anything,”_ Kyoya snapped. “And don’t start on the host club—I turned over a fair share of the overall profit to everyone, which you well know despite the fact that you never touched the money, you sanctimonious—”

“Don’t.”

“Get out.”

“I’m not done.”

“I am, and you don’t want to push me further tonight.”

* * *

“Kyoya?”

He did not look up from his new glass. He had a lot to do when she finally left, and he shouldn’t indulge, but he didn’t want to look at her. He wasn’t going to explain anything else to her. He should have made other arrangements after her first email, but she was never supposed to get into the house. He didn’t know why he’d allowed it. A lapse in judgment and all reason, he supposed.

He certainly could offer no better reason.

“I was quite clear—”

“I didn’t realize how dark it had gotten already.”

He glanced toward the window. He hadn’t been paying attention to the time, but she was not wrong. The sun had already set, and dusk had fallen quickly. “Your point?”

“Have you seen your ‘driveway’ lately?”

He laughed. “No, I haven’t, but it’s hardly an issue as I don’t want have much reason to use it. I don’t go out, and I have most things delivered.”

“That still requires a driveway.”

“Hmm. Perhaps.”

“There is no perhaps to it. You need a way to come and go. It’s kind of necessary. And it doesn’t seem like you to not have a simple way in and out in case you needed to leave in a hurry.”

That part made him nod, almost smiling. “Yes, I do have one of those. No, I am not telling you where it is. You should have gone when it was still light, back when I first told you. This changes nothing.”

“And if I told you that you wouldn’t have to leave?”

Kyoya eyed his glass, knowing he was not that intoxicated. Not after that little of alcohol. He looked back at her. “Now you’re really not talking sense. Must you continue this? I am tired of it. And bored, to be honest. Just be done and go.”

“The Ootori Group wanted your art. Did you really think they’d accept no for an answer? Was your plan really to refuse them?”

“I suddenly feel like I’m listening to Tamaki and one of his half-baked schemes that was mostly in his head.” Kyoya put a hand to his head. It did hurt even if he wasn’t hungover yet. “What are you on about? Why are you still here?”

“You know why. I’m not done here.” She crossed over to him. “I don’t think you have to be, either.”

She’d be a fool to think he’d stay now that she knew where he was. He wasn’t going to be here when she did actually leave, though it was looking like he’d have to resort to some extreme measures to get her to leave.

“My supervisor said it—no normal artist would have understood the contract they offered was biased in their favor. You actually may have gotten _more_ attention by refusing.”

“I don’t want anything to do with my family or their money. I won’t take anything from them.”

“I don’t blame you for that, but I do think maybe you might draw less attention by letting them win than fighting them if it’s what you really want. You could… draw out accepting it and then only give them one of the sets of murals they’re asking for. It would buy you time if nothing else, and if your father _did_ think this was you, he’d probably lose interest knowing you’d never give in.”

“An intriguing notion. Flawed, but amusing.”

“You don’t have to be like—”

“I suppose that is the argument you’re making for being able to stay here overnight?”

“What? No. I’m not inviting myself to—”

“You may have matured into more of a woman these days, but you are still completely inept when it comes to romantic notions as well as what I’d find appealing. After all this time, it never once occurred to you that things in that beach house wouldn’t go further because you had just vomited profusely in my bathroom?”

“Uh...”

“I have no interest in your virtue,” Kyoya said as he rose. “I also do not have a guest room.”

“I… um...”

Her incoherence was rather humorous, as usual. He smiled as he crossed the room. “I will expect you to be gone in the morning.”

“Right. I will be. I’ll tell them you—wait. You’re letting me stay?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“What?”

He stopped in the doorway. “As I said, I have no interest in your virtue. However, I cannot speak to how the cats may feel about this issue. Some do like to make nuisances of themselves, that is quite true, and well… Chi does have quite an appetite.”

He swore he heard Haruhi curse him as he shut the door.

 


	6. Calculated Surprises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haruhi tries to come up with a plan to change Kyoya's mind. He has one as well, to get rid of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a part of me that said this idea of Kyoya doing this was completely insane and out of character. And it did kind of come off as such when I wrote it the first time, which led me to adding in Kyoya's scene with the flashback, but even then, it didn't feel like enough, so I kept it back and debated deleting a lot of things, but then I reconsidered.
> 
> Whether that was right or not, I did find I didn't think the idea was that out of place in this version, so I kept it.

* * *

Haruhi flinched again at the noise, shifting on the couch and shivering a little. Kyoya hadn’t so much as offered her a blanket, and she hadn’t been willing to go chase after him and ask for one. She should have, since she couldn’t seem to get warm enough to fall asleep—not that she would, with every little thing making her think the panther was in the room and about to eat her.

She knew that was stupid. Kyoya wouldn’t take those kinds of risks with his own life, and he’d only said it to mess with her, but he’d won because she couldn’t _not_ think about it as she laid here. She grimaced at her own thoughts and sighed.

She was never going to sleep like this.

She heard something much larger and sat up, staring at the room. What was that?

“And here I thought they’d proved you weren’t scared of ghosts.”

“Does the shadow king really count as a ghost?” Haruhi asked, swallowing and trying to get calm again. She put a hand to her head. “I thought you left.”

“The house? Not hardly. There are many logistics to consider, and it is already late.” Kyoya walked over, turning on a lamp and shaking his head as he bent down to pick up a strange object from the floor that might just have been… pink. Kyoya did get involved in some strange stuff in the host club, but he wasn’t a part of that now. “Like a certain senior you used to know, Chi happens to be exceptionally fond of her stuffed animals. Unlike Usa-chan, however, these are mass-produced and she fortunately does not seem to see them differently when she inevitably destroys the one she’s had for a while. This one is still relatively intact.”

He held it out to the panther, and it let out something like a growl as it took the toy from Kyoya. He smiled, and the panther bumped against him like a normal cat might.

“Um...”

“You are not that incoherent when you argue legal cases, are you? It’s pathetic.”

She glared at him. “This situation is far weirder than any legal case I’ve argued in the past, and I’m good at what I do. Stop assuming I’m not just because you’re a pain in the ass to deal with and any lawyer would have trouble with you. And I’m not. I’m… I need to ask the shadow king for a blanket, and I’m a bit concerned what it might cost me.”

“A blanket?”

She nodded. “You weren’t exactly welcoming when you said I could stay. You didn’t even really say I could use this couch, but I kept having the feeling if I went looking for your linen closet, I’d end up with some strange priceless tapestry that you’d charge me interest on for the slightest snag or something.”

“Hmm. And what value would your debt be to me? I am trying to cut ties, after all.”

“I don’t know. I just didn’t want to start down that path again.”

Kyoya smiled at her. “I see. In that case, wait here, and I will get you something.”

She frowned, not sure what to think of him saying that. Still, she wasn’t about to roam his house in the dark. She wasn’t that crazy. She’d taken enough of a risk coming here in the first place and then confronting him and insisting on staying here. She didn’t want to push her luck any more than she already had.

She still hadn’t figured out exactly how she would convince Kyoya not to run. She had to find a way before the morning. The others would want to know what happened to him—and she still didn’t know the details herself. And if what he said about his father trying to use them against him—wasn’t there a better way of dealing with that? There had to be.

“Here.”

The blanket hit Haruhi’s face, and she pulled it down to look back at the doorway, but Kyoya was already gone. She fingered the fabric and drew it up around her. The blanket was soft, and as she pulled it around her shoulders, she felt warm.

She curled up on the couch, snuggling into the blanket. She’d have to think about how to get Kyoya to open up to her—which was impossible—or at least keep him from running. That might be possible, but she’d better have a damned good plan if she thought she could use it against the shadow king.

* * *

Kyoya sat down on the edge of the bed, taking his glasses off and running a hand through his hair. A large head bumped against his knee, and he gave the blur of black a baleful glance, more tired than he had any right to be, since his day had been rather peaceful before Haruhi’s arrival. The mural was coming along at a rate that pleased him, though he had no reason to rush it. He hadn’t planned on showing it to anyone, certainly not her, and it didn’t matter when he finished it. The whole point of this life was doing what he wanted when he wanted, after all.

Chi gave a low rumble, and he grimaced. “You do realize this is your fault, don’t you? If not for you, I would already be gone.”

She bumped her nose against him, and he knew she’d give him the disgusting toy next, trying to atone for the shift in his mood. He wanted to be angry with her, since he could have left almost all that was here behind, set the fire and burned all the clothes and stupid, meaningless trinkets. Even the other cats would be able to survive if he destroyed the house, resilient as they were. She was the only one of them that could not fend for herself, the one too large for a typical vehicle and causing all sorts of logistical problems.

He should never have rescued her. He knew that. He’d known it before he’d even thought of doing so, but somehow, he did it anyway.

_Kyoya found himself looking at the leopard again, its eyes never leaving him as it stared on in quiet desperation. He hadn’t intended to give it any attention at all, but somehow he couldn’t look away from it. He’d found plenty of things that disgusted him in this businessman’s home, but nothing more so than this, the big cat looking up at him like it saw past the pretense he’d put on to gain entry._

_No, worse than that. This was like a wretched mirror, one Kyoya had never wanted to peer into, distorted as it was even as it revealed the truth. He could see himself in this pathetic animal, more than he ever wanted to, since they were painfully alike, two wild creatures broken and tamed against their will, twisted into something they shouldn’t be._

“It just doesn’t make sense. You go to all that trouble acting like you’re such a big jerk when being a nice guy comes so naturally to you. It seems counterintuitive.”

_He’d called it an intriguing notion that day, but it wasn’t. He knew why he was the way he was, and after that incident at the Ouran Fair, she should have, too. Kindness wasn’t something an Ootori showed anyone, not when there wasn’t something to gain from it. Kindness without purpose was weakness, and Ootoris were not weak._

_Yet three days after looking into the eyes of that cat, Kyoya stood in the wreckage left behind when the businessman’s corruption was exposed and he fled, trying to avoid prosecution. As his eyes met the leopard’s again, Kyoya knew he was damning both of them._

“ _It would seem you are my problem now, cat.”_

Chi nudged Kyoya’s knee again. He put his hand on her head, closing his eyes. “She can be quite stubborn when she wants to be, you know. And by she, I do not mean you.”

The leopard rubbed her head against him, though he suspected she was merely mimicking actions she’d seen other cats take towards him than inclined to do it herself.

“Since she is stubborn...” Kyoya reached for Mephistopheles as the other cat drew near. “The question is… how far will I have to go to make her leave?”

* * *

Haruhi woke with a groan, feeling a bit like she was hungover even if she hadn’t even finished her glass of wine last night. She had felt this way before, many times, and most of the time, she could blame them on Tamaki or the twins—her host club hangovers. They usually happened after one of Tamaki’s grand schemes or need to explore ‘commoner’ culture, though the twins could be just as bad. She got the occasional hangover from the others, but they were so rare she barely remembered them.

This one was all Kyoya’s doing. Haruhi hadn’t been able to sleep much, still trying to find a good way to stop Kyoya from disappearing and burning this place to the ground. She still wanted her answers, and she had to admit that despite all the times and ways he’d tried to make her dislike him, had given her reasons to, she didn’t want to lose Kyoya again.

She forced herself up, rubbing her head and looked down at the blanket. “That bastard.”

She didn’t even want to know how much that thing was worth. Why the hell would he do that, anyway? He’d said himself a debt from her was of no value, but that was definitely a tapestry he’d let her wrap herself up in last night.

Bastard.

Haruhi set the tapestry to the side and rose, looking around the room. She could see plenty of light, and she was used to waking early for work. She had a routine, and she doubted it had been changed much by being here. She crossed to the door and leaned out, not sure where to go now.

Well, the bathroom was the obvious choice, so she should take care of that first, but after that, what? She was pretty sure helping herself to Kyoya’s kitchen wouldn’t go over well. She might have won other host club members over with a bit of cooking, but that wouldn’t work for Kyoya. He’d never been particularly fond of all the ‘commoner’ stuff that Tamaki had forced on him.

She should probably ask first, though if Kyoya was still asleep, there was no way she was waking him up. She’d heard far too many horror stories about that, even if she suspected that a lot of them were exaggerated.

She finished the first of her necessary morning tasks, washed her hands, and started looking for Kyoya’s room. Making her way through the house, she ended up checking all the rooms she’d seen before, not sure how she’d gotten so turned around, but Kyoya’s house was like a maze and were this a few years ago, she might even have thought he’d had servants change everything overnight while she slept, but he seemed to live alone these days, aside from the cats, so she didn’t think that was possible.

She shook that thought off and checked the next room, stepping into the same room where she’d found him painting yesterday. She stared up at the mural, taking note of all the changes since she’d seen it yesterday. She didn’t understand. When had Kyoya had time to do this?

Something bumped her leg, and she looked down at the Burmese, frowning as she did. “He never did tell me your name.”

“And why should you need to know it?” Kyoya asked, and she looked over at him, ready to tell him just how stupid a question that was when her brain failed her.

She let out something close to a shriek instead. “Kyoya-senpai, what are you doing?”

He adjusted his glasses and turned his back to her, resuming his work on the panel in front of him as if she wasn’t even there. “Painting, obviously. The better question is why you’re still here. You said you would go in the morning.”

“No,” Haruhi began, knowing her face was bright red even though she could only see his back now. Well, no, more than his back. That was part of the problem. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen Kyoya without a shirt before—she’d seen all the boys that way multiple times since the host club did well when showing a bit of skin—but this was much more than that. She forced her eyes away and tried to control her voice. “The better question is _why are you naked?”_

“You have an objection to me going without attire in my own home?”

“I… That’s not it.”

“It sounds like it is,” Kyoya said. “You do seem rather distressed about it, and I don’t see why. This is my home, after all, not yours. You’re not even supposed to be here.”

“You don’t really paint nude all the time.”

“Why not?” Kyoya looked back at her, his expression far too innocent for what he was doing now. She could barely face him, but he seemed to have no shame at all. “If you think about it, this is the only practical option. It is far easier to get the paint off my body than it is to get it out of my clothes.”

She blinked. “You’re really going to try and excuse this… prank of yours like that?”

“I’m not excusing anything. And why would I bother playing a prank on you? I am not either of the twins, after all.”

That was very true, and yet she was still standing here trying to come to terms with the fact that the hypotensive evil lord and shadow king Kyoya Ootori was painting without a stitch of clothing on. He had his glasses but nothing else. This had to be a joke. She didn’t see how it could be anything else, but why would he do this? Why now? Shouldn’t he still be asleep and in full evil lord mode?

“You were going to burn this place down yesterday.”

“Yes.”

“So this is a joke.”

Kyoya shook his head. “It would be absolutely pointless to make a joke at this juncture, and I am not. What you see is a very simple and uncomplicated action taken for entirely practical reasons. If you must attribute an emotional one to it, it’s true I feel a bit… disappointed to leave this painting unfinished, but I do not need to keep it. That’s something you don’t understand. Don’t think I am any sort of artist stereotype. In that, you are very much mistaken.”

She knew he’d played up the role yesterday, trying to convince her he wasn’t Kyoya, but since she knew he was and that he was planning on running, she didn’t understand what he was doing now. “Shouldn’t you be packing now instead of painting?”

That made him laugh, and he looked back at his painting, smile curving his lips as he went back to work. “You believe that because I am aware of the cost that I am deeply attached to these items, is that it? That I cannot part from them for monetary or even sentimental reasons?”

She had until he asked her that and more or less scared her into doubting everything. “I… You were always so insistent on increasing my debt, so I guess… yes. I did assume you wouldn’t leave anything behind you had to pay for again.”

“Ah.” Kyoya turned and mixed more paints, creating a different shade and using it to create a sharp, almost violent contrast on the canvas. Was he mad now? Haruhi almost thought he was, that he was threatening her not with words or even the fact that he was naked but with that line of paint. “The first rule of any game in life is not to bet more than you can afford to lose.”

“Only everyone bets more than that all the time.”

“Agreed, but that just goes to show how foolish and desperate mankind in general is.” Kyoya switched colors again, and she was almost relieved. “I do not bet more than I can lose, and I have enough confidence in my skills to know I can get back what I’ve lost. There is nothing here of any true value—I can have it all replaced.”

“Even that tapestry you gave me last night? Isn’t it some kind of ancient art piece? And what about all those rooms full of junk and antiques and—”

“Anything that has value to you can be used against you. This is a lesson I learned early, and it is one I’ve never forgotten.” Kyoya went back to the other color, and each stroke of the brush was almost like a knife slash as it moved against the canvas. “Nothing here matters to me at all. Even the expensive pieces are all just money in the end, and I do not doubt that I can make more.”

Haruhi swallowed, feeling sick. She thought she might be scared to know just how he’d learned that lesson. How violent had his father been? How much hurt had he done? “Then why are you still here?”

“Aside from not wanting to deal with people looking for me for murder or attempted murder should you have still been in the house when I burned it, you mean? It would be foolish to burn the house before all the necessary items are moved, and while I have cut down on how many of those I have, there are some I do not care to harm. Chi, in particular, is quite difficult to move on short notice. She does not find the back seat of a standard car at all agreeable.”

“You’ve moved her in a car? Are you completely insane now?”

“Hardly.”

“That’s a little hard to believe when you’re standing there wearing nothing and painting like this is completely natural. You have a panther. That’s just crazy.”

“Chi is a leopard.”

“What?”

“A melanistic leopard, so she appears black, but as she is from Asia, she is a leopard, not a jaguar. Stop gaping at me like that. You are not that ignorant. _Panthera_ is the genus that includes leopards, lions, tigers, and jaguars. A black panther is a melanistic leopard or jaguar.” Kyoya shook his head and returned to his painting, making a noise of disgust as he did. “And if you keep letting your mouth hang open like that, you will get flies, or so they say.”

She put a hand to her head. “You didn’t correct me before. You even said she was a boy yesterday.”

“That was part of the eccentric artist persona and protecting her identity.”

Was it? Or was this just him trying to find another way of messing with Haruhi? One minute she seemed to think she was closer to understanding him and the truth, that he’d opened up to her in spite of everything, and the next, he changed again, making no sense at all.

“Why are you doing this? What could you possibly gain from tormenting me like this?”

“I am not doing anything. You are the one making things difficult. You were supposed to leave last night. Yet you’re still here. You should inform those idiots you work for that you will not be able to give them what they want. That is, of course, after you leave here.”

She shook her head. “No. Not if what you said about your father is true.”

“You are fine so long as you are not in contact with me, so you have all the more reason to leave.”

“Don’t think you can avoid an explanation by doing this. I can be professional in spite of the fact that you’re naked.” She felt herself flush, making that a lie even as she said it, and she struggled to get her expression under control. “And ridiculous.”

“Can you now?” Kyoya asked, turning toward her. She took a step back and hit the wall, having nowhere else to go. He gave her a slight smirk. “If that were true, how very disappointing it would be, but we both know you’re lying.”

“We also know you won’t do anything to me despite this.”

Kyoya leaned even closer to her, putting his arms on either side of her and trapping her there. She refused to look down, struggling to calm her breathing. Kyoya was a lot of things, but she still didn’t believe he was a rapist. This was still him trying to scare her off, and she had to be stronger than this. She _was_ stronger than this, even if she was far more aware of him as a man now than she’d been of him as a boy. He was full grown now and dangerous in a completely different way than he was pretending he was now.

He was a puzzle she couldn’t leave alone, one she felt more desperate to solve than she’d ever been about anything in her life before now. She had to figure that was something to do with reaching her goals and finding herself lost and purposeless. She needed something to focus on, and life had somehow dumped a completely confusing Kyoya Ootori in her path, making her unable to go back before she had the answers she needed.

“No,” Kyoya said, backing off and shaking his head in disgust. “I suppose it’s not actually worth challenging that position. After all, I already know you have poor taste in most respects, especially when it comes to men.”

“Excuse me?”

“This is tedious. Just go. You won’t change my mind about leaving, I have no interest in anything you have to offer, and I have no intention of discussing anything with you.”

“I am not done—”

“I am. I already told you that.”

* * *

Haruhi sagged against the wall outside Kyoya’s studio, sighing. She hadn’t gotten anywhere back there, just managed to make a fool of herself and make Kyoya angry. He hadn’t yelled or thrown anything, but he’d gone back to painting in a way that unsettled her, and she hadn’t wanted to stay. She had to find some other way of getting past the walls he had up, and she had no idea where to start.

He had gotten to her, even as she wanted to believe he hadn’t.

She tended to ignore relationships and not care about the lines her father had blurred a long time ago, preferring to judge things based on factors other than genders, but she was still a woman who found men attractive, and she wasn’t blind. It was impossible for her not to react a little to Kyoya being naked in front of her.

She wanted to say he should have done it yesterday before she got the wig off and he couldn’t deny who he was any longer, when he was trying to play up being the unknown eccentric artist, that she couldn’t understand what he thought he’d gain by doing what he had this morning, but she knew that wasn’t true. Even if all he wanted was to make her uncomfortable, which he’d very much succeeded at, he’d had a plan. He’d executed it flawlessly, too, unlike her. She couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d done and getting red all over again. Kyoya, on the other hand…

How could he be so… calm about that? Being naked in front of her like it was nothing?

Was she really nothing to him? He could act like it didn’t bother him at all, and he had. She hadn’t seen one hint that he was at all uncomfortable with his state of undress. His angry painting wasn’t about that, she was sure it wasn’t, since he’d spoken of a lesson—one she was sure his father taught him with violence—and he still wasn’t willing to talk about that man, but he had no problem being naked in front of her. Why? Could it be that he didn’t see her as a woman? Or because he wasn’t interested in women? What was Kyoya even thinking?

After meeting him again, she wasn’t sure she’d ever known, that she could ever understand him.

Her phone rang, and she jerked upright, answering it. “Fujioka.”

“There you are. I’ve been trying to reach you all day. Where the hell are you?”

She moved away from the wall, standing tall and smoothing out her clothes so that she might look presentable again. Without something for her contacts, she’d still look hungover, but she couldn’t do anything about it now. “Um… You sent me to speak to that artist in person—”

“And you’re still there?”

Haruhi wasn’t about to explain the complicated situation with Kyoya to her supervisor. “You did make it sound like it would mean my job if I didn’t get him to agree to the contract, so I’ve been doing my best to persuade him, but so far, he’s been very stubborn about it.”

“It shouldn’t be that hard. The Ootori Group’s offer is very generous.”

“He’s not interested in money and doesn’t want to sell his art.”

“Don’t be foolish. Every artist wants to sell their art.”

Haruhi felt like smacking something. “This one doesn’t. He doesn’t want the money, isn’t interested in fame, and doesn’t want to sell. Tell them to forget it.”

“I don’t think you understand the situation. We are not in the position to refuse a request from the Ootori Group, and this little artist isn’t, either. He has to sign that contract.”

Haruhi shook her head. “You’re not listening to me. He’s not going to sign. He doesn’t need anything they’re offering him, he doesn’t want it, and we’re not going to change his mind about this. he’s very determined.”

“That’s an understatement,” Kyoya said from behind her, making her jump. She almost dropped her phone, barely managing to catch it.

“Please tell me you have clothes on,” Haruhi said, unwilling to look behind her. She could barely stand the thought. He was so close—again—and she didn’t know what she’d do if he _did_ touch her.

“What did you just say?” Her supervisor’s voice got shrill and made her wish she had dropped her phone. She held it away from her ear as much as she could. “Of course I have clothes on.”

“Not you,” Haruhi said, wincing. She shouldn’t have said anything, especially since Kyoya’s laughter was right in her ear, and she felt her stomach flip-flopping for reasons that had nothing to do with eating too much shellfish. “The artist.”

“He’s naked?”

“He was earlier.”

“Is he attractive?”

“No.”

“I should be offended,” Kyoya said, taking the phone from her and leaning into her. She swallowed, daring a glance to see if he was actually clothed this time. He was, and she wanted to be relieved by that, but with him cornering her like this, she wasn’t.

“Give me back my phone before they think you’re a real pervert.”

Kyoya smiled grimly as he ended the call. “I don’t care what they think of me, but I’ve given you an excuse never to deal with me again. Now leave.”

“So you can disappear on us again?”

“What us? You’re the only one who knows I was ever here, and I can keep it that way. I _will_ keep it that way, and unless you’re a complete idiot, you’ll do the same.”

“No.” She swallowed. “I could call all of them. Today. Tell them I saw you again.”

“Do you have a death wish? Is that what this is?”

She met his gaze, refusing to back down. “You said you weren’t afraid of your father, but you’re acting like you are. You’re hiding from him. You’re hiding from us. This isn’t about freedom, whatever you might try and pretend. You’re scared.”

“You don’t understand at all.”

“Then tell me the truth.”

“No.”

She shook her head. “I can’t accept that. You know I can’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because we cared about you. We all did. Losing you… it did what so many other things couldn’t do—it broke the host club. You have to know that, don’t you?”

“Don’t exaggerate my importance or bother to pretend that any of you really gave a damn about me. I’m not such a fool that you can play on my sympathies. I don’t have any. My father made sure of that. Now get out.”

She winced. She’d long since connected the dots between the parts of Kyoya’s behavior that didn’t make sense and what she little she’d seen and learned of his father. They’d all been so focused on Tamaki leaving during the fair that they hadn’t done anything about Kyoya’s father—she’d told him off, once, but what good did that do Kyoya? He’d still been living with an abusive father who made impossible demands of him, and none of them had done anything. None of them had stopped it or even talked to him about it. Kyoya had helped Tamaki learn about his mother, but she didn’t think anyone had helped Kyoya with anything.

“We were stupid teenagers, Kyoya-senpai. Too many of us believed the myth, the shadow king persona you let us see. We didn’t think you’d want our help even if we could give it you, and we didn’t think we had any way of helping you.”

“And what? You say sorry now and I forgive you? Is that what you expect me to do?”

“No.”

“Then we understand each other, and I will only say this one last time—get out.”


	7. Reminders of What Was and What Must Never Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haruhi hesitates one more time, so Kyoya makes the decision for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, I had a very hard time being able to use either spelling for "Hunny-senpai." It took a while before I was able to be comfortable enough to use that spelling and not write around it. I'm not sure why it was like that, and I know it would be nicer if I could be consistent with using spellings all from the same set of translations, but... I can't, apparently.
> 
> Writing for Ouran is... rather nerve-wracking for me, and I keep getting torn between wanting to do more and thinking I can't possibly write for it at all, which is why I had to post a second chapter instead of just leaving things with the last one.
> 
> And I added the cover art to the first chapter. I hope that's actually a good thing. I don't know anymore.

* * *

“ _Do you like what I got you?” His sister asked, and Kyoya looked over at her, wondering if it was different for her because she was a girl. Different things were expected of Fuyumi, though he knew at least one that was the same—one day he would have to marry someone that would be an asset to the Ootori Group, just like she would. “Well?”_

_He didn’t know why she’d bothered giving him a toy. Did she really not understand what it meant to be an Ootori? How was that possible?_

_Because she was a girl?_

“ _It’s fine.”_

“ _It’s okay to smile, you know,” Fuyumi said as she turned a page in her book. Kyoya did not know why she was in here reading, though maybe that was why she gave him a gift, as an excuse so she could hide what she was reading. Their father would never approve of something like that, he was sure of that, even if he didn’t know much about it. The cover made it obvious enough—that was some kind of romance, and it was far too frivolous for an Ootori to read._

“ _Don’t fill his head with foolish notions,” their father said, and Fuyumi jerked up in her seat, looking for a place to hide her book. “Smiles are tools, not for idiotic displays of emotion.”_

_She pressed her lips together and lowered her head, bowing to him and not saying anything else, her hands in her lap._

“ _You can go.”_

_Kyoya swallowed as she left, trying not to be afraid even as he knew that his father sending her away was not a good sign. He must have done something wrong again. He didn’t know what it was, not this time, though he supposed he wouldn’t be surprised if he was going to be blamed for what Fuyumi had done. He hadn’t told her to go away like he should have, but then Fuyumi rarely ever listened to him, just went on in her way like he said nothing if it disagreed with what she wanted._

_She was like their father in that much, though Kyoya doubted anyone would be happy to hear that._

“ _What did she give you?”_

“ _This,” Kyoya said, not bothering to hide it. “I figured I would give it to the maid to dispose of later after she was gone.”_

“ _As you should. That is a toy much beneath your age and inappropriate for you as an Ootori.”_

_Kyoya felt a sudden urge to keep it, but he knew better than that. Even small rebellions like that had a price, and it was not worth it over a toy he would never use. “Yes, Father.”_

_His father lifted his chin, and Kyoya tensed, trying to stay calm but failing badly. This was going to hurt, but he thought he’d done the right thing, so it was hard not to react._

“ _You still betray so much emotion. I can see it, you know. How much you hate me right now. How scared you are.”_

_Kyoya couldn’t bow his head with his father holding him like that. “I’m sorry.”_

“ _Yes, you are. I can see that as well.”_

_Kyoya frowned. “I don’t—”_

“ _As long as your enemies know how you truly feel, you are vulnerable. In this case, you should apologize, but if I were someone else and not your father and you betrayed yourself so readily, you would not just be seen as weak. They would know they could use you, and you would let them.”_

“ _No, I wouldn’t,” Kyoya said, determined. He wasn’t about to let anyone use him. His father had impossible standards, that was true, but he wouldn’t be used by anyone. Fuyumi had just tried, and now he would pay for it, but he wouldn’t let her do it again. “They won’t. I’ll use them first.”_

_His father smiled. “Now that is an attitude worthy of an Ootori. You must keep your friends close and your enemies closer, but that is not possible if you let them see your emotions. That can never happen. You understand this, don’t you?”_

_Kyoya nodded. “Yes. Of course.”_

“ _Then you will prove it. If I see one sign that you are in pain, you lose.”_

* * *

Kyoya felt Chi nudge him, and he ignored it, keeping his eyes on the gate. If he looked away, she might not leave, and he could not allow that. She had to go. If she continued to stay, she would put everything at risk, and he did not want that. He’d been careful not to get too attached to anything, knowing as he did that he might have to leave it all in a hurry, and that should not be a problem. The problem was Haruhi.

He did not believe she’d been convinced to leave the matter alone, even if he had gotten her out of the house. He had given too much ground in allowing her to stay, he supposed, but he didn’t want her dead, just away from this place and anywhere he might go in the future.

It was difficult not to see her as the beginning of the end. All his work, his careful preparations, it was all useless now that she’d found him.

She’d caused such chaos before when she joined the host club, and he didn’t think it would be any different now. Haruhi might have been the natural type, but she was also a wild card, one that could not entirely be predicted, not even after years of careful observation. He couldn’t always count on her to be sensible, despite having more of a level head than most students at Ouran, and for all that she was generally apathetic, she did care a lot when it came to certain matters.

She had, after all, almost lost her life to keep Tamaki in Japan, and she had also put herself in the crosshairs of his father by standing up for him as she had. She was the one who took Tamaki’s crazy plans to help others and made them viable instead of the fantasies he would create, and Kyoya had enjoyed having someone else there who acted with some sense. Mori was far too indulgent when it came to his cousin, who tended to favor cake over anything else in the world.

Kyoya shook his head. He did not want to think about that. True, remembering the host club was almost preferable to his other memories of the past, the ones involving his childhood and family, but that did not mean that it was worth wasting his time on.

Damn it, why hadn’t she left yet? He could still see her car from here.

He reached into his pocket and took out his phone, composing a message to her. _Do not think because I am standing here I am reluctant to see you go. I am waiting to be sure you are leaving, and if you do not go of your own free will, I will have you removed by force._

He put the phone back, not wanting to see her reply. He would not be swayed by it.

“If she does not leave in the next two minutes, you will have to go scare her.”

Chi looked up at him. He did not think she wanted to, but she had that same resigned aura that reminded him of Mori at times. She would do it. If not her, then assuredly Mephistopheles. Kyoya’s guard cat had taken a particular dislike to her—he recognized her for the danger she was.

“It doesn’t end here.”

Even if Kyoya could not predict how things would unfold, he was certain of that much at the very least. This was far from over.

* * *

Haruhi knew Kyoya was watching to make sure she left. He’d walked her to the door and stood there, every bit the shadow king that people feared in high school, far more imposing now that he wasn’t naked or dressed like an eccentric artist. He’d probably chosen that suit with care, knowing just how intimidating he was when he was acting like a businessman—a dictator with a dangerous smile that knew where every penny had gone—and wanted her to feel every bit of that as he forced her to go.

Still, she stood next to the car, find it difficult to make herself get in. How was she supposed to leave knowing he would disappear as soon as she did? Even if he claimed it was for their good—and she wasn’t sure she believed that, even as much as she didn’t put much past Kyoya’s father—a man who would hit his son in front of so many people could be capable of anything—Kyoya meant too much to everyone to just walk away.

Had he been here all along? She hadn’t found much information on the artist when she’d started working on the contract, but that didn’t mean much.

She heard her phone beep and grimaced. He’d probably sent a second threat, and she didn’t want to read it, but when another buzz came a second later, this one with the special tone on it that Hikaru had insisted on putting on the last time she saw him, she frowned.

 _Happy anniversary!_ The first message was full of emojis, most of them cake, and a photograph she didn’t remember taking, though she could tell it was from her early days in the host club, possibly one of Kyoya’s hidden camera pictures.

 _Oh, that’s right,_ Hikaru’s message said, quickly joined by one from Kaoru.

_Today is the day that Haruhi first joined the host club._

_Yup._

Haruhi had to smile at seeing Mori’s response. He actually did seem to speak more in text than he did in person, or at least it seemed like it to her on those few occasions when they did group texts like this. They were pretty rare and usually ended badly, but that never seemed to stop Hunny-senpai from trying. Though he was older, her was still “cute” and used it to get away with a lot of things.

_We should celebrate with lots and lots of cake._

_You do that every day, Mitsukuni._

_Yeah, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate, right, Kaoru?_ Hikaru used a winking emoji, and Haruhi shook her head, hoping they wouldn’t start the whole act just because the club was talking again.

Well, almost.

Tamaki, who had been surprisingly silent up until then suddenly spoke, far from his usual exuberant self. _I miss him._

No one had to ask who he meant. They all knew. She looked back at the house, seeing Kyoya’s silhouette still there in the shadow. So very fitting, wasn’t it?

 _Why do you always say that when we talk?_ Hikaru demanded. _He left. He doesn’t care about us. He’s gone, good riddance._

_Don’t be like that, Hikaru. Kyoya-senpai was important to all of us._

_Yes._

_We were all better when Kyo-chan was with us,_ Hunny said, adding his support to his cousin’s word, and it was hard to argue with that since Kyoya had been the “mother” and had kept them all grounded and the club from going under by his various money-making schemes and some devious plans that kept them from falling apart due to personality conflicts and egos. _It’s okay to miss him, Tama-chan. I miss him, too._

 _If I knew where he was, I’d hit him,_ Hikaru said. _Jerk._

Haruhi winced, knowing how much it Hikaru was hurting, too, because of Kyoya’s disappearance. They all were, in their own ways, from Tamaki who had never really gotten over his best friend’s abrupt departure to the twins withdrawing more into themselves and Hunny crying. Mori hadn’t said anything, but his expression had been darker than usual.

 _I just wish we knew what happened to him,_ Kaoru said. _It worries me that we haven’t seen any sign of him in years._

Feeling a bit strange or maybe a bit reckless, Haruhi found herself typing a message. _What would you do if you knew where he was?_

 _Hug him,_ Hunny said with another emoji. _And then demand answers._

_Yes._

She almost shuddered at the idea of Hunny and Mori interrogating Kyoya. Though Hunny hadn’t acted as a thug for long when Renge gave them all “character depth,” he’d been scary, and from what everyone said, that was what Hunny had been like before the club. They owed this happy, cutesy Hunny to Tamaki.

Maybe they should hate him for that. It was hard to say sometimes.

It was easier to see that this couldn’t go on. Tamaki’s misery was clear even in just the one message, and Hikaru’s anger didn’t hide his pain. Everyone, even Mori in his way, missed Kyoya and wanted him back.

That shadow fell over every time they got more than three of them together. Sometimes they could avoid this conversation, but any time they were in a group, everyone noticed that someone was missing, even if he usually was in the background manipulating strings. He would have calmed them down with a single word or something.

She couldn’t leave. She had to do something about this.

* * *

Mephistopheles jumped onto the roof of the car, hissing down at Haruhi, who jumped and dropped her phone. Kyoya glanced at it, picking it up to put it in her hand so she had no further excuses. She backed up almost comically against the window. If she wasn’t afraid of him, what was this? She looked like she wanted to run, but she wasn’t running.

“Why are you still here?”

She swallowed, tugging on her jacket as she faced him. “The answer’s right there in your hand.”

He shook his head. “Even if you found some new and creative insults for me, I have no interest in them. You were supposed to leave. If you keep fighting me on this—”

“Look at the screen.”

He did, having accidentally scrolled it back to the top. The picture that started it all was there, a generic one of all of them waiting for their customers, though judging from the length of her hair and the lack of color in either twin’s it was towards the beginning of when she joined the club.

“You expect me to care about an anniversary they all got wrong?”

She blinked. “What? It’s—”

“The official date you joined the host club passed yesterday. True, you only served as the ‘dog’ at the time, but that does not change the erroneous date. So it’s only pathetic, not nostalgic, if that’s what you were hoping for.”

She shook her head. “I meant what Tamaki said after that. What they all said.”

Kyoya looked back over the text, carefully allowing his annoyance to show as he did. “I see. Well, there is a simple solution to that.”

“What?”

Kyoya typed a single line into her messenger, knowing full well that were they still in high school someone would be off in the corner with mushrooms at best. _I think he’s dead._

The screen was a sudden flurry of messages, all coming at once. Kyoya didn’t bother reading them as he passed her back the phone. She read over the new messages, frowning, and scrolled back up to read what he wrote.

“You bastard.”

“It’s true enough. The person you all assumed you knew is dead. Now go.”

“You hurt them. All of them. Deliberately and—”

“Why do you insist on holding to the idea that I am some kind of nice person? You know better than that. You think because I stopped in that bedroom I should be forgiven and what I threatened you with can be overlooked? You are a fool.”

She glared at him. “No, _you_ are. After all this time, here where you can be free of all those expectations and the acts you had to put on, all the things you did to act like an Ootori and not like… you, you’re still letting him win. You’re still pretending you’re something you’re not. Admit it, Kyoya. We mattered to you. We still do.”

“You don’t.” _You can’t._ He didn’t want to care about any of them. “And don’t get so indignant. You all expected a role of me as well. Don’t try and pretend you didn’t. I was the shadow king. The cool one. Or the damned mother.”

“I never ever saw you as a mother.”

“I’m aware of that. Few of us are as delusional as Tamaki was.” He didn’t think anyone could be, though in some ways, Tamaki did remind Kyoya of a character in a Western short story, always imagining himself a hero. He would take the Danny Kaye film adaptation of it, of course, where his hapless character still somehow got the girl instead of the cold reality of the story where Walter Mitty was nothing but a pathetic old man dreaming away his dull life.

“I’m not wrong about you. I know you care. Even if you pick some messed up ways to show it, you _do_ care.”

Kyoya doubted he would convince her otherwise. There was nothing else for it, then. The extreme measures were necessary. Regardless of what method he chose to render her unconscious, she should not forgive him for it, though with her stubbornness, he couldn’t assume she wouldn’t. The more violent method, perhaps? Or would it be better simply to confuse her?

“Kyoya-senpai?”

There wasn’t much else for it. She wouldn’t give in, but neither would he. She didn’t understand it, he knew that, and he didn’t intend to explain, but he couldn’t go back, couldn’t let her or anyone else into his life.

This was necessary, then, and Kyoya always did what was necessary.

* * *

“You’ll tell me if she wakes, right?”

Mephistopheles gave Haruhi a look like she should be thrown out of the car, which Kyoya ignored. The real problem would be when they got back to Chi, who never took his absences well. His one consolation was that he was planning on destroying the house when he returned. He didn’t want any trace of his presence left there, no way for anyone to try and guess what he might do next. He’d learned long ago that it was the small things that gave anyone away, and he refused to let those small things trip him up now.

Haruhi, of course, did not count as a small thing. She was still rather petite, of course, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t one hell of a large problem. He knew that he would not truly be free after doing this, as he could not see her keeping her knowledge of his survival and location to herself. He didn’t know if it would make any difference to her if he’d told her everything, but that didn’t change much. He knew he could not tell her—would not—and that meant theorizing about it was pointless.

“Admittedly, I doubt any of them would understand.”

Mephistopheles stretched, placing his front paws on the dash and yawning. Kyoya supposed they had had this conversation before. He rarely had anyone aside from a cat to speak to, though most of the time it was not a problem for him. He had no real need of human companionship. That had only proved to be the bitter disappointment his father had said it would be.

“ _We’re friends,” Kyoya said, feeling defensive. He held his notebook up against his chest and wished he’d been smarter and gone into his own room to do his homework. “That’s what you said I needed to be, right?”_

“ _Friends are tools,” his father corrected, and Kyoya tried not to wince. Nothing could show, he knew that, but when he screwed up his lessons and did something wrong when he thought he was doing what his father wanted was always worse. Not only did his father make sure he hurt, badly, but he was left confused and struggling again to understand why he’d gotten it so wrong. “If you use them as anything else, you will only fail.”_

“ _You wanted me to be friends with that boy since his father has that tech company and—”_

“ _Being friends with him has alienated you from someone of more use to us,” his father said, and Kyoya frowned. Hadn’t he said that taking up Suzuki-kun’s friendship would mean exactly that when his father ordered him to get closer to the other boy? He hadn’t minded since he didn’t actually_ want _to be friends with Matsuoka-kun, but his father had made him._

_Saying that would make no difference, though._

“ _Go back to Matsuoka. Get him to forgive you.”_

“ _Father—”_

“ _He is more valuable, so you will keep his friendship. If you cannot accomplish this, you are not an Ootori. Remember, you do not need friends that will not be of use to you.”_

“ _Suzuki-kun was of use—”_

“ _Do not fool yourself. He is using you as much as you use him, and the moment you forget that, you allow yourself a weakness. One he will exploit. It is how this world works. Always remember that. An Ootori is not weak.”_

Kyoya realized how tightly he’d been gripping the steering wheel and relaxed his grip. He did not dislike driving in general, though when in heavy traffic it was extremely unpleasant and he would find himself missing the days when someone else did all the driving. Still, his frustration at present was not the traffic, which remained light enough to allow too much freedom for thought. Some freedom was nearly inherent in the act of driving itself, in this false sense that the vehicle could go anywhere, that being behind the wheel was somehow an act of liberation or defiance, but in this case, it was far from ideal.

Her home was far from his, and while he’d like to stop before reaching there, he knew full well that she’d just turn around and come back if he did. This was the best solution for getting her where she needed to be and not back interfering in his life.

“It’s a tiresome story, isn’t it? The rich kid who hates his life and runs away from it. How many times has that been done in any media? It’s not as if mine has any particular depth, though I would have thought Tamaki more likely to be the one to do it, especially if it meant getting Haruhi or reuniting with his mother. He liked so many commoner things, though he never did seem to understand money. With his spending habits, he’d likely be impoverished in no time at all.”

Mephistopheles hissed. Kyoya supposed in venting similar frustrations he’d biased the cat against Tamaki as well.

“I used to argue I had good reasons for what I did. Yet when she asks, I cannot give them to her. Which makes me wonder… was I wrong about them all along? Or is it simply that I know my reasons do not make sense without details I refuse to disclose?”

He shook his head. It did not matter. Soon enough she would be back home, and he’d have gotten rid of his, leaving nothing for her or any of the others to find. That was how it had to be.

For all she thought there was another way, his analysis of the situation was far different. In the end, he was certain it would come down to him or his father, so unless he wanted to commit patricide, his path was set.

She could not change that any more than she could change him.


	8. On Innocence and Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rest of the host club reacts to the text Kyoya sent as Haruhi, and things get complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this was my first time writing from a perspective that wasn't Haruhi's, Kyoya's, or even Ryoji's. (That's another AU, though.) I wasn't sure how well I'd do, and while I know that it is generally an insult to call a grown person -chan, I think that Hunny might have a hard time letting go of that habit even when he's grown and the head of his family's business.
> 
> At any rate, it was impossible for me to put the dialogue/texts/thoughts down without the -chan, as that was how I kept hearing Hunny's voice, so I went with it.
> 
> It was about time the others made an appearance in the story, after all.

* * *

“ _Ignorance is no excuse. Nor is innocence. You understand this, don’t you?”_

_Kyoya fought tears as he looked up at his father. He didn’t understand. He didn’t remember doing anything wrong, but his father was talking like this was all his fault again. He didn’t see how that was possible, but then he was always the one doing wrong in his father’s eyes. He knew that, but it still hurt to see it, to think it, and to know he would never be good enough. He kept trying to do better, but he couldn’t seem to get it right._

_This didn’t even seem like something that could be his fault, but his father said it was. Kyoya didn’t understand. He wanted to ask someone else, but he knew better than to try and get his brothers to explain or even Fuyumi. She was worse in some ways, telling him not to mind it and to be a kid while he was one, whatever that meant._

_He knew she made their father very mad when she said that, but she still kept saying it, sometimes with tears, and she’d send him off to play. Kyoya knew better than that. He had to be what his father wanted, so he was going to learn. He read a lot, but even with all he knew, the volumes of the encyclopedia he’d been working on memorizing, he didn’t know what he’d done this time._

“ _He was the one who—”_

“ _If someone sees you as innocent, they see you as vulnerable. Weak. Something they can use.”_

_Well, that explained part of it. Kyoya already knew how much his father hated it when he was weak. That made him very angry. Kyoya was trying hard not to be weak, and he wanted to ask his father about learning more about that—like a self-defense routine even if he always had bodyguards around him because that would make him stronger, right?_

“ _I didn’t—”_

“ _Did he call you innocent?”_

_Kyoya nodded, though he did not want to admit it. That man had also said something about his father not having corrupted him yet, but that didn’t make sense to Kyoya, and he didn’t want to say it and make his father even angrier._

“ _Innocent is something you should only be when you_ want _them to perceive you as weak. It can be a tool, but if you let it use you, you will fail. This is what happened today. You let it use you.”_

_Kyoya swallowed. He didn’t even know how he’d done that, but if he said so, he’d just get in more trouble with his father. He needed to ask so he didn’t do it again, but how? If he did, his father might hit him, and he didn’t want to be hurt again._

“ _While you are young, you will be seen as a child. An innocent. And that can be to your advantage if you use it right. You can exploit many with false innocence and ignorance. Think of when you tricked the cook into giving you another dessert by ‘not remembering’ how many you already had.”_

_Kyoya gagged. How had his father even known about that? He wasn’t home that day. Had the cook told him? But why? Why would he do that?_

“ _I didn’t punish you for it then, but you understand that if you use such methods to go against what I tell you, I will make sure you are punished appropriately.”_

_Kyoya nodded. That was all he could do. “Yes, Father.”_

“ _Now when it comes to certain matters, there are adults who will expect you to be ignorant and innocent, but you will be neither of those things as you are an Ootori and you know how the world works. You know how to use the weaknesses of others, and you will never allow them to use yours, will you?”_

_Kyoya shook his head. No, he wouldn’t. He’d learn and train so they couldn’t. So his father wouldn’t get angry again._

“ _Good. Now, we need to discuss exactly what he thought he was going to get from you.”_

“ _I didn’t tell him anything. I wouldn’t. He thought I was… He said it was cute that I didn’t want to talk to a stranger about family business.”_

_His father laughed, but that was a scary thing. Kyoya wanted to run, but he knew better than that._

“ _Of course you wouldn’t. Still, you must learn how to handle these situations properly. You could have—should have—been able to use that against him. In the future, you will. You will use what others see as ‘innocence’ and ‘kindness’ against them.”_

_Kyoya didn’t want to, but he nodded and agreed anyway. “Yes, Father.”_

* * *

Sitting at his desk, frowning as he had to adjust his office chair again, Hunny found the picture he needed on his computer, grateful again for Reiko’s insistence that making a digital back up of all their photos cursed them all to where they’d never be lost. She was so cute with her curses, and he liked that about her a lot.

He took the photo and added a bunch of emojis to it as he prepared a group text. One number was missing, had been missing for years. Even now, none of them knew where to find Kyo-chan, despite the efforts of many intelligence networks and private police forces. That thought always made Hunny sad, so he put in some more cakes to cheer himself up before he sent it to everyone he could reach.

_Happy anniversary!_

_Oh, that’s right._ Hika-chan was the first to respond, though Kao-chan’s came only a moment later.

_Today is the day that Haruhi first joined the host club._

_Yup._ Takashi still didn’t say much, but Hunny was sure he liked texting over talking. He was more like his sleepy self, which was probably why he spent most of his time texting his love instead of speaking in person. Hunny knew that they communicated well with only looks, too. They were very talented that way.

 _We should celebrate with lots and lots of cake,_ Hunny said, already picturing the wonderful desserts he could have for a special occasion. They were even better when he was celebrating, and this friendship of theirs was still important, even if it wasn’t the same after Kyo-chan left them.

_You do that every day, Mitsukuni._

_Yeah, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate, right, Kaoru?_ Hika-chan winked in emoji, and Hunny smiled, figuring Kao-chan would take the bait on that one.

Tama-chan’s response came first, and it put a damper on everyone as soon as it did. _I miss him._

 _Why do you always say that when we talk?_ Hika-chan asked, sounding angry even in text. _He left. He doesn’t care about us. He’s gone, good riddance._

_Don’t be like that, Hikaru. Kyoya-senpai was important to all of us._

_Yes._

_We were all better when Kyo-chan was with us,_ Hunny said, agreeing with his cousin. The club had been Tama-chan’s idea, and he’d gotten each of them to join in turn, but all of them knew that as much as Tama-chan thought of the ideas, Kyo-chan kept the club going and everyone together. Haru-chan joining them changed things, and she was important to all of them, they loved her, but it was not the same as what Kyo-chan was to all of them. _It’s okay to miss him, Tama-chan. I miss him, too._

That was the truth, no tricks and no extra cuteness. Hunny did miss Kyo-chan. He’d always figured when he took over his family’s business, he’d end up working not just with Takashi but with his other friends, too, and Kyo-chan more than anyone since he was so good at business.

 _If I knew where he was, I’d hit him,_ Hika-chan said. _Jerk._

Hunny knew that Kyo-chan leaving made Hika-chan sad. Mad, too, but mostly sad. Hunny knew that Haru-chan was not the only one who could tell the twins apart—she was just the one who _said_ it. Hunny knew Takashi knew, and so did Kyo-chan. He knew so much about all of them. The twins needed him, too, even if they didn’t want to be disciplined. In some ways, Kyo-chan was their Takashi.

Hunny liked his Takashi better, but that didn’t mean he didn’t miss Kyo-chan.

 _I just wish we knew what happened to him,_ Kao-chan said. _It worries me that we haven’t seen any sign of him in years._

Hunny knew he was not the only one worried. Takashi had said he was, too.Some of the others didn’t say it, but since this happened often enough when Hunny started a group chat, he knew they cared as well.

_What would you do if you knew where he was?_

_Hug him,_ Hunny said, adding the emoji. Then his mood darkened. He did miss Kyo-chan, but he wouldn’t say he was only sad. He was mad, too, like everyone else. _And then demand answers._

 _Yes._ Takashi agreed with him. That always felt good.

_We’d all want answers._

_He owes us answers._

Hunny told himself that Kyo-chan must have had reasons for what he did, and he was willing to listen to them, but he also knew that if they weren’t very good reasons, he’d make sure he paid, just like the true heir to the Haninozuka style.

 _We’d make him tell us everything._ Hika-chan and Kao-chan seemed to be enjoying this. Hunny might be a bit more worried if he wasn’t so mad at Kyo-chan himself.

_You wouldn’t really hurt Mommy, would you?_

_You’re not seriously still calling him that, are you?_ Hika-chan seemed mad now. _He doesn’t get to be family after what he did._

_He may have had reasons._

_Not good ones._

_I think he’s dead,_ Haru-chan said, and if they’d been in the same room, the silence would have been deafening. Hunny felt his own bottom lip quivering. Surely that wasn’t true. Kyo-chan wasn’t a martial arts expert like him or Takashi, but he could take care of himself.

 _You don’t really think that’s why he left us, do you?_ Hunny asked, adding in some crying emojis because he wanted to at the thought.

 _I doubt it. That’s not him. He’d tell us if he was. Wouldn’t he?_ Kao-chan now seemed to doubt his own words. _He always had something going on, but what benefit is it lying to us about him dying?_

_Well, one thing’s almost certain. Someone’s over in his emo corner growing mushrooms right now._

_Tamaki?_

_Tama-chan?_

* * *

Kaoru checked the time and frowned. This was not good. True, few group texts ended well when it came to the host club, and it tended to be over the same thing. Kyoya leaving had changed them, and nothing was the same after that. Even when they had fun, they were aware of who was missing, and it didn’t matter that he would have been in the shadows watching more than reacting.

It did matter that he wasn’t there to be the voice of reason, to turn a shadow king glare on them and get them to calm down and not go too far.

Kaoru knew they all had at one point or another. Haruhi did try and stop them, but she tended to get overruled easily. Kyoya might have been overruled, but he was underhanded enough to get his way in the end, so it wasn’t the same.

 _He’s still not saying anything,_ Kaoru noted, eying the clock. Yes, it had been too long since Tamaki’s last text. Even if Haruhi’s statement had put him in the emo corner, he should have come out of it by now. _Someone will have to check on him._

_Haru-chan? Can you tell Tama-chan you didn’t mean it?_

_She hasn’t said anything in a long time, either,_ Hikaru said, still well aware of everything Haruhi did. Kaoru hadn’t paid as close attention to her actions, but his brother was right. Haruhi had gone quiet, too, after dropping that bomb on them.

_She doesn’t really mean it. Right, Haruhi?_

No response.

_Haruhi?_

Kaoru switched over to his contacts, pulling up Haruhi’s number. Knowing Hikaru, he’d already dialed it, so Kaoru calling would be pointless. He hit the button next to Tamaki’s number instead. Someone had to check on him.

The call rang and rang and rang until finally going to voicemail. Kaoru hung up without leaving a message, calling again. After the third time, he went back to the text messenger. _Tamaki’s not answering._

_Neither is Haruhi._

_Well, Takashi or I can go check on Haru-chan, but Tama-chan’s in France._

_And we’re in Milan,_ Hikaru said. Kaoru nodded. They were due to start an important fashion show in two days, which was why Hikaru was off running a few last minute errands while Kaoru tried to finish here.

They still had a lot to do.

 _Keep calling him,_ Mori said. _Mitsukuni and I will see to Haruhi._

Kaoru nodded. He’d rather go himself, and he hoped Hikaru wasn’t getting any crazy ideas about getting on a plane for Tamaki or Haruhi. They had other responsibilities, and they couldn’t quit in the middle of a show. Even if Haruhi was mad at them—and Kaoru wasn’t sure that was why she’d said what she did; they’d all considered the possibility of Kyoya being dead before at least once; they had to—she would eventually apologize. Rushing off to her side was excessive, and they weren’t kids anymore.

All of them had their own lives. They had to remember that.

_Let us know if anything changes. We’ll tell you if we get a hold of Tamaki. If we have to, one of us will go in person to see to the boss._

_I swear, if he’s still in that emo corner…_ Hikaru let the threat drop, not saying more. _Never mind. I’ve got to finish here and get back._

 _Make sure you get extra of that fabric,_ Kaoru told him. He sent a final sign off message and set the phone to the side. He was tired, but they had a lot to do, so he really hoped nothing was wrong back in Japan.

* * *

Kyoya shifted the keys in his hand. He’d made sure to have them ready before lifting Haruhi out of the car, knowing that trying to shift her in his hold to get them later would be a problem. He did not want her awake before he was well away from here. He did have some thoughts about ways to make her reconsider coming after him, but even if she didn’t, he had to keep her asleep long enough to allow him to move the necessary things from his home and have it destroyed.

He had not been at all surprised to find that Haruhi still lived in a relatively low income part of the city, even with her current salary. He had noted a couple more expensive vehicles in the area, which might belong to criminals, and he was putting her at risk doing what he was, but he would lock the door behind him if nothing else. He didn’t actually want her harmed, just well away from him so he could do what he had to do.

He opened her door and stepped inside, instinctively ducking as something came right at his head. He didn’t think Haruhi had any real security, but he’d developed a rather keen sense of when his life was in danger over the years of avoiding his father’s private police.

He found himself looking at a very angry Mitsukuni Haninozuka who had put a good sized hole in the wall next to the door.

“What are you doing with Haru-chan?”

Though Kyoya had taken the precaution of adopting the eccentric artist persona a final time before making this trip, he did not have any particular illusions of it fooling Hunny or Mori, not when it could not fool someone as dense as Haruhi.

He set her down, figuring that was the wisest choice under the circumstances. Then he bowed to Hunny and tried for the more rural accent he’d become familiar with after spending as long as he had in the country. “Apologies. She had too much to drink at lunch.”

“That doesn’t sound like Haru-chan.”

Mori nodded as he came closer. “It is a rare for someone to evade one of Mitsukuni’s attacks.”

Kyoya considered making a joke about having a lifetime’s worth of learning to dodge, but he hadn’t actually been able to do that most of the time. He’d had to take whatever his father did, no avoiding it no matter how much he might want to spare himself the pain.

“Then I the great painter and master of art, the patron deity of cats, I am quite fortunate indeed. I have always been lucky, you know. When I was a child, I—Oh, look. There is my familiar. I thought I left you at home. Naughty, naughty thing, always escaping and appearing where he shouldn’t. He causes such fuss, you know.” Kyoya extended a hand and Mephistopheles jumped up his arm and onto his shoulder, hissing down at Hunny and then up at Mori. “Apologies. He is quite bad tempered. I suppose that’s because I got all the kindness and he is my bad traits?”

Mori was staring at him. Kyoya knew that Haruhi would be doing the same were she conscious. He thought that Ranka might have a thing or two to say about his performance, but that did not matter so long as he could fool Hunny at least temporarily.

“You seem familiar,” Hunny said, and Mori nodded in agreement, which was not a good sign at all. Still, if Kyoya could get out the door without injury, he had transportation and could put all of this behind him. Damn Haruhi for causing all this trouble anyway. He’d just wanted her to go, and now he was in danger of losing much more than his house.

“I think that’s because I’m a deity,” Kyoya told Hunny, whose eyes were wide and rather like how he’d be every day in the host club despite the intervening years. “I seem familiar to everyone, don’t I, Spot?”

“Spot?” Mori was the one to ask it, and Kyoya wondered if the animal lover in him was offended by such an erroneous name for Mephistopheles. The cat in question tolerated it, but it was incredibly inaccurate. His real name suited him better.

Mephistopheles started purring, preening on Kyoya’s shoulder, which was a bit reckless, but he did have incredible balance.

“When she wakes up, can you tell her the same thing? About me being familiar, I mean. She seemed to think so, too, and between that and me telling her I wasn’t selling my art, she did get very drunk earlier.”

“We could,” Hunny began, but he folded his arms over his chest and put all the training he had as a Haninozuka in his bearing, “but we won’t, will we, Takashi?”

Mori shook his head. Kyoya understood he’d lost the battle—it wasn’t likely his act could fool either of them, which was unfortunate. He had intended to leave with as little damage as possible, but once again, he would be unable to do so.

The still smaller figure of Hunny threw himself at Kyoya, and though he attempted again to dodge, he ended up caught, not just by the martial artist but Mephistopheles’ claws.

“What are you doing?”

“Exactly what I said I would, Kyo-chan. I’m hugging you.” Hunny looked up at him. “And now that I’ve done that—I want answers.”


	9. Unable to Balance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyoya is forced to explain a bit more to Hunny and Mori.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Though I knew part of what Kyoya was going to stay to Hunny and Mori, this still took a while. My brain was in conflict about just how far Kyoya's father went, and that debate made me hesitate. I wasn't sure if Kyoya's reasons would make sense without the full darkness of that backstory, and I don't really want to do it, though my brain keeps saying it was part of what this story was based on all along. So far it hasn't been... said, but it may come up later, so I'm still uncertain about it but I did want to get this part written, since Kyoya did need to explain a few things.

* * *

 

“ _Explain yourself.”_

_Kyoya didn’t want to, since he knew that no justification he made would appease his father. He knew that acting on his own was just trouble, and even when he obeyed orders, he found himself in trouble over his methods. This time was no different._

“ _Can we skip to the part where you hit me and be done with it?”_

_His father looked at him, and Kyoya felt his stomach twist, choking down bile. He hadn’t eaten, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to puke seeing that look. He knew what it meant. Pain, pain, and more pain. He knew better than to talk back, but what was the point in talking about this? It was going to end with his father punishing him._

_He should have known trying to speed things up would only make it worse._

_His father came closer to him, backing him into the wall. “Would you care to repeat that?”_

“ _No.”_

_His father nodded. “At least you know that much. Now, are you going to make me ask again?”_

_His father hadn’t asked, but pointing that out wouldn’t help, either. Kyoya swallowed, hoping he didn’t look as scared as he felt. His father was worse when he could tell Kyoya was afraid, all because that was somehow another lesson he needed to learn—it wasn’t, Kyoya knew it, and he’d been trying for years to perfect his reactions, but somehow his father always knew._

_Kyoya was and always would be a failure._

“ _There is nothing to say.” Kyoya’s voice came out much calmer than he was. He wanted to run, but running was pointless. It wouldn’t save him. Nothing would. Nothing did. He wanted to believe that if he kept working at it that he would eventually be able to do everything his father demanded of him, that he’d be able to fool that man and get what he wanted, but he didn’t feel like that now. He was almost certain he wouldn’t._

_He was just going to hurt and hurt until someday he got lucky and died._

“ _You prefer to offer no explanation?”_

“ _I clearly failed to live up to your standards, so there is no excuse that can be given to change that. I would rather move on to whatever punishment you’ve deemed necessary and be done with it.”_

_His father studied him for a long moment. “Now that is a response worthy of an Ootori.”_

_Kyoya almost smiled, but looking pleased now would not be good, either. “In that case—”_

“ _However, as you didn’t answer my question and responded first with belligerence, I will still have to punish you.”_

_Kyoya’s stomach sank. So much for getting it right even just once._

_His father touched his cheek. The gesture was almost kind, and it shocked the hell out of Kyoya, who could only stare at him in disbelief. What was this?_

“ _You are learning. That is good.”_

“ _Thank you.”_

“ _Sadly, though, you still have much to learn.”_

* * *

Hunny wasn’t about to let go until he got some answers, though he knew how stubborn Kyo-chan could be. He knew how scary he could be, too, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t use his own training if he had to, even if he didn’t want to hurt Kyo-chan after all this time. They were friends, and all of them had missed him, but only Kyo-chan knew why he’d walked away and hurt them like that.

He wasn’t dressed like Kyo-chan, who had never seemed to favor traditional dress and avoided it when Tama-chan wasn’t insisting on it for a cosplay, but there was no mistaking Kyo-chan for someone else. He just wasn’t the sort of person anyone could forget, and there was still enough of the boy they’d known in the man in front of them, even if he was wearing something Kyo-chan wouldn’t wear and trying to sound like anyone but himself.

“Answers.”

Hunny nodded to Takashi’s comment. “Yes. We want answers.”

“And I highly doubt you will allow me to leave until you’ve gotten them, am I correct in that assumption?” Kyo-chan sounded much more like himself, the Shadow King they used to know, and for a moment, Hunny thought he might have missed the other guy who’d pretended not to know them. Just a minute. That Kyo-chan was kind of funny, but this one was their friend.

“Exactly.” Hunny didn’t bother adding that if Kyo-chan’s reasons weren’t very good, they weren’t going to let him leave, either. He owed a few apologies, too, though Hunny wasn’t stupid enough to think that Kyo-chan would give them. He was not that sort of person, and most of the time he’d said he was sorry was for a client at the club and not sincere. Kyo-chan had angles, and he knew how to manipulate people. He wasn’t the only one.

Hunny had been able to exploit his cuteness for great effect and much cake, after all.

“Very well, but only because I do not have time to waste.”

“Looking like that?”

“I do appreciate the fact that you’re more vocal these days, Mori, but when have you ever not known me to have a purpose for everything I do?” Kyo-chan shook his head. “No, I have my reasons. This particular roleplay is far from my favorite, but it was effective for what it was, and it will make what I am about to do easier—assuming that you will both be convinced not to meddle in my affairs.”

“That may be difficult,” Hunny said. “For one, you didn’t give us any cake—”

“Mistukuni.”

“—and two, you hurt a lot of people and they want answers just as much if not more than we do.”

Kyo-chan nodded. “I am not unaware of that fact. I knew what I was doing when I chose to do this. Nothing was without consideration. That’s not who I am.”

That was what hurt more than anything, Hunny thought, because Kyo-chan knew exactly what he was doing to all of them when he did it, but he hadn’t stopped it. He’d gone ahead and left them without any word, telling them not to follow, and even though a few of them had gone against what he said and looked for him, he’d covered his tracks too well. No one had found him. Not until now. Until Haru-chan somehow managed it.

That didn’t surprise Hunny too much. Haru-chan had always been rather special, and she reached all of them in ways that few could—even without meaning to do so.

“Why did you leave us?”

Kyo-chan drew in a breath and slowly let it out, like he was measuring what he was going to say. “My father had a plan for me from birth. That’s not so unusual, we’re all in that same position—we were, at least. Becoming head of my family’s corporations was always dangled out in front of me like a prize. A carrot on a stick that I was meant to desire but never obtain.”

“But you got control of your family’s companies.”

Kyo-chan nodded. “I did. And after I did, I realized just what I’d been chasing. I thought I had everything I had ever wanted, but in the end, the victory was… completely empty. I had changed nothing. It wasn’t even that I gave my father back control—I thought proving that I could do that to him was enough, but… As I said, nothing changed. He still treated me the same and expected me to do as he said without objection as I had before. Bringing up my success only seemed to make it worse, and if I defied him—well, it is enough to say that things did not change.”

Hunny looked at Takashi. Though his cousin said nothing, Hunny knew he was mad on Kyo-chan’s behalf, as they all had been over the years. None of them were blind or stupid, though he was almost certain that Tama-chan had managed to delude himself for a long time about what Kyo-chan’s father was really like.

“At any rate, things finally came to a pass when I was due to graduate. He… He took an interest in Haruhi. And I do not have to tell either of you that my father having an interest in Haruhi is not a good thing.”

“Was he planning on blocking her from becoming a lawyer?”

“Perhaps. I cannot be entirely certain what he would have done had I not chosen the path I did, though I mostly believe that his interest was in trying to control her.”

Hunny frowned. “How? If he wasn’t going to stop her from going to university—”

“If he made her an Ootori, he could do as he pleased, and I do not think he had any qualms about her agreeing to such a thing _or_ what he would do to her after he forced her into a family where his word was law. It would have been quite a coup, I suppose, since he’d have been able to subjugate us both if he’d gotten his way. He knew I’d have to do what he wanted if he made that happen. He told me a long time ago that anyone I cared about was a weakness—this is not exclusive to Haruhi; she was merely one he could use in a different way because she _is_ a woman—and so him suggesting a friend of mine as my wife was not a kindness on his part. He’d already seen how she was willing to defy him. Everyone else turned a blind eye to what he did at the fair but her. So we would be used against each other all the while he had access to her to break her spirit as he broke all of his children’s.”

“Kyo-chan—”

“I am not telling you this because I want pity. I am only explaining so that you do not assist her in her attempts to find me again. I know her. She won’t give up, and neither will my father. Though I have no interest in anything from my family, he will not accept that. And I wouldn’t, in his place. Frankly, I know too much and will always be a threat to him.”

Hunny felt his lip trembling as he hugged Kyo-chan again, holding on tight. “You mean you won’t ever get to see us again?”

“There are ways around my father, though the simplest solution is one I don’t care for. Even as much as he has made my life miserable, I don’t want to kill him.”

“Kyo-chan—”

“So until I have everything else ready, this is how it must be. It’s far from ideal, but it hasn’t all been terrible, either. I’ve traveled and expanded certain horizons, though that became more and more dangerous as time went on. Lately, I have stayed in one place and rather enjoyed it until someone decided to show my art to the Ootori Group. I don’t know for certain if my father knew he was looking at something I made or not, but he doesn’t take no for an answer. Sending Haruhi to negotiate with me may well have been him trying again to force my hand, but I do not know for certain.”

“You’re an artist?”

Kyo-chan smiled. “The advantage of having an incredible amount of money and no one’s expectations weighing me down is that I can do whatever I please with my time. Art was simply a hobby I became curious about, so I indulged it for a while. It helped that it could explain my reclusive and eccentric nature as well as providing a convenient dupe when the time came to move on.”

Takashi frowned. “Dupe?”

That smile from Kyo-chan was rather evil, Hunny thought. “Yes, well, I did base this persona on an existing artist, you see. He possesses a similar level of talent but remains unknown due to his instability. He can easily fill the role I am about to vacate and no one will be at all the wiser. Or they wouldn’t have been, had my father not been able to reach Haruhi through her job. Again, I am not certain that she was sent at his order, but it does make it difficult regardless. Because she went, you are here, which complicates the plan I’d made to end her interest in me. She’s drugged enough now that she may well believe that she never saw me if she goes back to that house and finds a different artist… provided you two both agree to encourage her toward that position.”

“You want us to lie to Haru-chan?”

“Yes. For her safety as well as everyone else’s. While you and Mori are both quite capable of defending yourselves, I am not as confident about the others, and I am not under any illusions—you should not be, either—my father will use any of you he can to try and get to me. The only reason he hasn’t so far is because I cut all ties as harshly as I did. Staying away is all I can do to keep the rest of you out of the crossfire. This war between my father and me is, at present, a cold one, but do not think for a moment it could not go nuclear in an instant.”

Hunny’s heart hurt. Though Kyo-chan had said he didn’t want pity, that didn’t make it easy to ignore the pain he must be in now. He spoke like it was nothing, but then Kyo-chan always did pretend it was nothing when it really was something.

He looked over at Haru-chan. He did not like the idea of lying to her, either, even if it was to protect her.

“If you won’t, at least give me the time to finish my head start,” Kyo-chan said, looking from Hunny to Takashi again. “I need to move a few things and put that artist in place. If I don’t and it comes out that you all saw and therefore _helped_ me, there will be consequences. And I doubt my father would restrain them to the three of you. I no longer put anything past him.”

“Does Haru-chan know why you’re doing this? If you told her—”

“While Haruhi could be rather apathetic towards many host club activities, she has always had rather an overinflated sense of justice. It is very much part of why she became a lawyer. She will not let it go, and she’d want a part of any plan I do have, which is impossible. As I already said, my father will use the rest of you against me if he thinks he can, and though she will not want to see it, she is more vulnerable than most of you simply because she is a woman.”

“There are more of us,” Takashi said. “We all have resources.”

“That’s right,” Hunny agreed. “When you started, we were still children or dependent on our parents. We’re not any longer, even if we do work in their businesses in some cases. We have our own money and can help now in ways we couldn’t before.”

“That may be true, and they may become necessary, but for now… I would rather the game remain as it is, with only two players and no one that can be used as pawns.”

“We do not need protection.”

Hunny had to nod in agreement. He and Takashi could defend themselves well. “We can help.”

“How much are you willing to risk?” Kyo-chan asked. “What about your younger brothers? Hunny, would you put Reiko at risk, too? Do you think they’d be immune if my father decides to move against you? Remember, everything that you find intimidating about me I learned from my father. I know everyone assumes I perfected it, but even if that is true and the student exceeded the master, the master is still dangerous… and has other students.”

“Kyo-chan—”

“I can win now because I have nothing to lose. If that changes, then he will win.” Kyo-chan adjusted his glasses. “Look, if it comes to a point where I think it’s worth the risk, I’ll contact you. Until then, at least allow me the head start I asked of you.”

Hunny bit his lip, looking up at Takashi, who nodded. Reluctantly, but he nodded all the same. “Takashi—”

“For now,” Takashi said, and Kyo-chan nodded, bowing his head to him as he turned to leave.

Hunny caught him again. “Wait.”

“Not again. I’ve already explained, and I don’t have the time to—”

“Can’t you at least give us some way to contact you if there’s an emergency?”

Kyo-chan stiffened. “If there is one, there may be little I can do about it, so I’m not sure it’s worth asking me for that. I… He’d be watching. I can’t come, and I can’t give any traceable assistance. So no. I won’t give that to you.”

“Please.”

“I don’t keep the same phone numbers or any other—”

“You can give us something. You asked us to let you go, and we will, but you could give us a little, too. You know that we would help, but you won’t let us. You won’t even consider it. We… we can only wait and worry, and that’s not fair. It’s not right.” Hunny shook his head. “No. I won’t. I changed my mind. You can’t go.”

“I have to. It’s not like—this is how it has to be. You have to let go of me now.”

Hunny didn’t want to do that. He didn’t think he could.

“Mistukuni—”

“Don’t tell me you want to let him go. I know you don’t.”

“It is his choice.”

“Yes, but he could still try a little. We’re not helpless. We want to do more, and I don’t think I’m asking too much. You asked far more of us when you wanted us to lie to Haru-chan.” Hunny faced Kyo-chan, folding his arms over his chest. “Give us a way to contact you.”

Kyo-chan glanced at Takashi. Whatever he saw there made him relent. “Fine, but I need to go. Now.”


	10. Confusion and Determination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haruhi wakes up. Kyoya remembers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to go rewatch the last episode of the anime to make sure my timeline on Kyoya's flashback was right. And the dialogue, too. I was right about what I heard, which was not what I found trying to look at a transcript. Possibly that is the subtitle, but I'm more familiar with the dubbed version as it was what was available on Netflix and also I have this thing where I can't sit still watching television or movies and write while I do, so... I need it to be in a language I understand. Anyway, I didn't mean for this to take that long, but... it has been kind of a bad week for me.

* * *

“Kyoya?”

Haruhi put a hand to her throbbing head as she lifted it, wincing. Dizziness hit her with full force and she gagged, not able to control her reaction as she vomited. Great. Now Kyoya would be mad at her for that, too, and she wouldn’t be able to convince him to work with her.

Wait. Why did she feel like she’d been drinking for days? She hadn’t had more than a few sips of that wine, and they’d been talking at her car and… What happened after that? Was she… Had Kyoya somehow… drugged her? But… when?

“Easy, Haru-chan. Don’t try to move again.”

Her eyes shot to that familiar voice, and she almost puked again. She wasn’t scared or bothered by Hunny’s presence, but what was this? Why was he here? Had he known about Kyoya all this time?

No. This wasn’t Kyoya’s pseudo-cat temple home. This was her apartment back in the city. What? When had she gotten here? And why was Hunny here? Why did he have a bowl?

“What happened?”

“You are ill.”

“Mori-senpai? You’re here, too?” Haruhi felt stupid as soon as she asked it, because she knew them. Where Hunny went, Mori was usually there, too, with few exceptions. This wasn’t any different except she knew she hadn’t been here last she remembered.

Mori took the bowl away from Hunny, and Haruhi realized she didn’t smell any vomit. That meant—had they been expecting her to puke like that? Why? “What’s going on?”

“We were all a bit worried after what you said in our group text,” Hunny explained. “Well, not just about you—Tama-chan got very quiet and we were worried about him, too, though he finally said something.”

“He did?”

Hunny nodded. “It didn’t make much sense—something about how Kyo-chan would never let sharks eat him and if he was lost in the desert Tama-chan would find him like they’d found the ancient cities and pyramids and then… Oh, Takashi, what was the other one?”

“Reincarnation.”

“Oh. Right.” Hunny grimaced, and Haruhi told herself not to ask about that one. She knew enough already to know that whatever he might have pictured for Kyoya’s fate would have been extreme, over the top, and probably fantastically unrealistic even if it was appropriately gory.

“I still don’t understand,” she said, rubbing at her head again. “I should be asking you how you got in here, but… I gave Mori a key, didn’t I?”

“Plants,” he agreed, and she nodded, still feeling off. Too many well-meaning people had given her plants as home-warming gifts, so she had a bunch of greenery around that she somehow hadn’t managed to kill, and she’d asked Mori to take care of them last time she’d had to go out of town for work. This time she hadn’t because she hadn’t expected to be going anywhere when she left for work that day.

Still, while that explained how they’d gotten in, it didn’t explain much else. “Did… Did Kyoya bring me here? Did you see him, then?”

“You should rest, Haru-chan. You are very stressed.”

She looked from Hunny to Mori and shook her head. “No. If you—none of us was happy about how Kyoya left. I know that you weren’t. Hunny-senpai cried for days. This isn’t—if you knew I’d seen him and you hadn’t, you’d be asking a bunch of questions. Since you’re not… you spoke to him, didn’t you? What did he tell you?”

“Haru-chan—”

“Don’t bother lying for him or trying to deny it. I know you had to have seen him or you’d have said something when I asked for him earlier. What I want to know is why either of you would let him go. He owes us explanations if nothing else and—damn it. He’s going to run again.”

She started to rise, but Hunny stopped her. “You should rest a bit longer.”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. “How can either of you think it’s okay to sit around right now? If Kyoya told you even just the little bit he told me—”

“He did warn us that what he gave you would make you sick for a while.”

“What?”

“Kyo-chan… wanted you to be unable to follow him. He told us… it was supposed to make you _not_ want to follow him.”

Uneasy, Haruhi looked between the two of them. “What did he do? I don’t even remember… I feel like I’ve been drinking, but I wasn’t. I… I don’t even remember all of it.”

“He didn’t tell us all the details, but he did imply that it would have been really bad,” Hunny said. “It’s Kyo-chan, so I don’t think he would have done anything that bad, but… he wanted you to think he had. He really doesn’t want you going after him.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Did he tell you?”

She looked over at Mori, surprised by the question. Why would he ask that? Did he think Kyoya hadn’t tried to talk her out of it? Or was he just curious about what Kyoya had said? She didn’t know. “Not much. Every time I tried to talk to him about it, he kept telling me to leave. He did say that his father saw him as a threat and that he knew if he spoke to any of us, his father would use that against him—and us. He said he wasn’t afraid of his father, but he’s running and hiding instead of doing something about it. That’s not like Kyoya.”

Hunny shook his head. “Kyo-chan has a plan, but he said it will take a while. The only way to make it be faster is to kill his father.”

Haruhi winced. “That’s not—”

“None of us want that. Not even Kyoya.”

Hearing that from Mori just made it worse. That made it more real, and she felt sick again. “There has to be another way. I even told him I thought I had one that would make it possible to stay where he was, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”

“You do?” Hunny sounded excited, but Mori just frowned. “What is it?”

“Mitsukuni—”

“If her plan is good, then Kyo-chan might need to hear it. We want to keep him with us, don’t we? And we know we can help now unlike before, so even if Kyo-chan really didn’t want Haru-chan involved because he’s worried most about what his father would do to her, we should hear the plan because maybe we can make it work. That way we get our Kyo-chan back.” Hunny was smiling, but she could tell Mori wasn’t entirely convinced.

“If I’m going to explain, can we do it in the car?” Haruhi asked, still queasy but knowing if they stayed here they’d definitely miss Kyoya. “It’s pretty far from here to where he lives.”

“Yes.”

“Mitsukuni—”

“Even if we’re too late, don’t you want to see where Kyo-chan has been living? He said he had a plan for that, so it shouldn’t hurt anything. Please, Takashi?”

Mori didn’t look like he wanted to agree, but as usual, he was weak to that plea of Hunny’s and ended up nodding. Haruhi let out a breath in relief. She wasn’t sure she could have made the drive on her own again, not as bad as she felt right now, but she’d be damned if she let Kyoya go without a fight.

* * *

“And that takes care of that,” Kyoya muttered, setting the phone aside for the rest of the drive. He had told the idiot where to meet him so that he could transfer the house and a few other necessary details to him, and by the time he got back, he should have everything in place to move Chi.

Mephistopheles mewed, and Kyoya looked over at him. “Don’t tell me you have regrets. You didn’t really think we could let them help, did you?”

The cat gave him an exaggerated yawn, so it wasn’t that. Kyoya supposed it that he was probably as bothered by needing to place things in someone else’s hands as Kyoya was. He didn’t want to leave it to the artist to sell the story, to convince everyone it had been him all along. Kyoya did not know if the man was capable of that, but he had little alternative. With Haruhi involved, Kyoya’s options were limited.

“ _At the fair today, that girl that spoke up in your defense,” Kyoya’s father began, and he tensed. He was not at all surprised to know his father had recognized that Haruhi was female without him mentioning the fact, as his father was much smarter and more observant than most, but as he’d known before the school rumor mill about Tamaki’s arrival, Kyoya felt certain that the head of the Ootori Group was monitoring nearly everything that happened at the school._

_His slap at the host club gathering was out of character, both in how late it was for his father to show his anger over Kyoya’s activities—Kyoya felt certain Yoshio had known for a long time what the host club did after school—but also for how public he’d been about his abuse._

_That was secret. That was an Ootori family curse, not to be spoken of or seen outside of the most private areas of any of their holdings, not to be exposed to others or seen by outsiders. Even the staff was under obligation to remain ignorant._

_Kyoya’s father had either slipped or felt the need to show his control in public. Kyoya had experienced the latter before, and it was never pleasant, but this time was different. He had hit Kyoya in front of everyone._

_Someone had been there that his father wanted to impress, though Kyoya was not sure who that had been. He just knew it was true._

“ _Fujioka is a commoner on scholarship. She owed the host club a debt. There is nothing more to it. She simply… failed to learn proper etiquette, that is all.”_

“ _There are those that say she will be a lawyer to be reckoned with if she follows her chosen path.”_

“ _Perhaps, but what is it to an Ootori? We have dozens of efficient lawyers.”_

“ _You overlook someone in your club? Someone you would call a friend?”_

_Kyoya snorted. “You taught me that all ‘friends’ are tools. The host club is simply a way of taking advantage of those tools. I had assumed you knew that, since you had not objected to it prior to yesterday. I suppose there are more dignified clubs, but mine is the most profitable.”_

“ _I would expect no less of you, and yet… I must consider the damage to our reputation if such a thing were more common knowledge than it is now,” his father said, coming closer to Kyoya. “Did you fail to warn the girl about speaking out to me?”_

_Kyoya tried to choose his words carefully. “It was better to leave her as uninformed as possible. She would only have found more reasons to attempt to interfere if I had tried to give her warning.”_

“ _I see. She must be quite stubborn.”_

“ _About some things, yes.”_

_His father leaned over him, looking for any small weakness Kyoya might display. He had buried most of them years ago, but if anyone could find them, it would be his father. “She could be a more valuable tool than you seem to realize.”_

“ _Would you like to use her to destroy the Suoh family? Or perhaps the Hitachiins? I believe either would be possible through her.”_

“ _Is that what you want?”_

“ _I want what is of advantage to me. As the club’s profits hang significantly on Tamaki’s presence, it would be regretful to lose the idiot, but it could be compensated for, I suppose. It wouldn’t be that hard to find another prince type, though perhaps not so easy to find one that is as oblivious as Tamaki is. He still believes I am doing this out of a sense of friendship and family.”_

“ _That is almost amusing.”_

_Kyoya wanted to ask if they were finished, though he knew they weren’t. That slap in public was also a warning, and he would have to pay for Haruhi’s defiance, even if his father accepted why he hadn’t told her not to say anything._

“ _That girl may be the key to Suoh’s undoing, but is she the key to yours?”_

_Kyoya stared at his father in disbelief. “What? Haruhi? Why would you think that? She’s in love with Tamaki. She doesn’t know it yet, and he doesn’t see his own feelings, either, but in time—”_

“ _She didn’t stand up for Suoh. She stood up for you. She sees value in you, in that club, that you’re… how did she put it now? ‘Amazing.’”_

“ _That is...” Kyoya knew denying it would not help, but his father’s insistence on this worried him all the same. He wanted to see Haruhi as interested in Kyoya, but why? She had no advantages to exploit. “I believe it simply her nature. She sees the best in everyone by default, even the idiots. I am almost certain she has feelings for Tamaki. If you had seen the lengths she went to in order to keep him in Japan—”_

“ _That is nothing to an Ootori.”_

“ _Father—”_

“ _Yuzuru Suoh believes he can have her for a daughter-in-law. I trust that you will see that it does not happen.”_

“ _Because you wish to keep Tamaki in position to become heir?”_

“ _Of course. You have mentioned several times the depth of his stupidity, how willing he is to disregard reality. If he has a capable woman at his side, he will not be as easy to manipulate, and you must maintain that hold you have over him long into the future.”_

“ _That will not be difficult.”_

“ _Good. Then deal with this Fujioka girl.”_

_Though it disgusted him, Kyoya forced himself to nod. He’d put a dent in his family’s car earlier and put himself at a disadvantage, not that he had ever won with his father before, even with more training. “Certainly.”_

“ _For now, it is enough that you keep them apart. I do not think we should ruin her before she has had a chance to prove herself useful. Do we understand each other?”_

_Kyoya nodded. “Of course.”_

“ _And of course you understand that we still have to discuss your involvement in that Tonnerre matter.”_

_His father had figured out that he was the backer who’d saved the company, then. That was no matter. Kyoya had not necessarily intended to keep it a secret. He met his father’s gaze. He’d won, and a victory without acknowledgment was hollow._

“ _Do you find it amusing?”_

_Hilarious, in some respects, but he’d hardly tell his father that. “It was necessary. I would hardly let our interests be damaged by a foreign company.”_

“ _Do you believe this absolves you of all guilt?”_

_Kyoya frowned. “Is it not enough that my actions saved our family? Why is that not enough for you? Did you actually want Tamaki to go to France? Because that’s not what this sounds like and not how you’re—”_

_His father shoved him up against the wall with enough force to knock one of the paintings down. “Did you really believe that you could take my money, use it against me, and not face any consequences?”_

“ _That was from—”_

“ _Your money is my money, even if you supplemented it from that ridiculous host club,” his father said, and Kyoya knew that this was going to hurt more than any of the recent lessons, perhaps more than all of them combined. “I’d expect no less from you. I expect more, in fact, and you will give it to me. Now.”_

* * *

“This is it?”

Haruhi nodded, leaning forward in her chair, though it was foolish. She couldn’t see past the large gate. She was a bit hopeful because she didn’t see smoke, but that didn’t mean they weren’t already too late. Hunny had driven like he was in a race, earning several warnings from Mori, but she’d been glad he was willing to put as much speed into this as he had been. She didn’t want to be too late to get to Kyoya.

Not again.

She got out, her legs buckling under her as soon as she did. She shouldn’t have stood up so fast. If not for Mori, she’d be on the ground now. “Sorry.”

“It is not a problem for me, but you should be more careful. You have not recovered.”

She nodded to Mori’s words, knowing it was unlikely he’d put her back down after that. She felt foolish, but that didn’t mean his instincts were entirely wrong. She hadn’t felt right since she woke, and if that was part of Kyoya’s plan—to make her sick and helpless and maybe even questioning everything she saw up here, it was actually almost a good one. She could appreciate it, even if it infuriated her.

“This looks like it should belong to someone else, not Kyo-chan.”

Mori nodded, and she knew they were both thinking the same thing she had when she first saw this place. Hunny pushed the gate open easily and Mori carried her inside it. She saw a white streak dart between Mori’s legs and rush up to the house. She wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not. Kyoya had only mentioned moving the leopard, after all, and while she doubted he’d go anywhere without his demon cat, he might have been willing to leave others behind.

“There’s a lot of cats here. Are they all Kyo-chan’s?”

“I’m pretty sure they are. He seemed to collect them, though I’m not sure if that was just part of his artist persona or if he’s really as attached to all of them as he is Mephistopheles and Chi.”

“Mephistopheles?”

“Chi?”

“You’d know the one if you’d seen her. She’s a panth—melanistic leopard.”

“Kyo-chan has a leopard?”

She nodded. “Seems mostly tame, but Kyoya did threaten me with her, so I don’t know for sure. He also called her Mephistopheles’ big brother, so who knows what’s real there?”

“Mephistopheles.”

“Black house cat, kind of mean, follows Kyoya everywhere? He is kind of like a miniature version of the leopard, but… she actually seems nicer. The one lives up to his name. Why are you both smiling like that?”

“We met this one.”

“Um-hmm,” Hunny agreed. “Kyo-chan said it was his familiar and called it ‘Spot.’”

“Spot?”

“I did not think it could be the cat’s true name, either,” Mori said, and she had to smile at that. She could just smile at the fact that he was doing more talking now. She had to believe that it was a good thing. She would have liked to know a lot more about him than she had when they were still in school, but it was so hard to talk to him.

Now she might have a chance.

First, though, they had to find Kyoya.

She wasn’t surprised to see Hunny take down the door with a single kick. She’d been impressed by his skills more than once in the past, and it seemed they weren’t the slightest bit dull. That door didn’t stand a chance.

“You should have knocked first, Mistukuni.”

Hunny gave Mori an apologetic smile, playing up his innocent look, and rushed down the hall, saying hello to each cat in turn. “Haru-chan, where would Kyo-chan be?”

She didn’t blame him for being concerned. There were a lot of rooms, and Kyoya could still leave while they were looking for him. The way he seemed so unconcerned about his driveway suggested he had another way to come and go to this place. Maybe even his own helicopter or plane.

“Well… Maybe the studio,” she said, trying not to blush as she thought of how she’d seen him this morning. She shook that off, refusing to think of a naked Kyoya in Mori’s arms. This was already awkward enough. She pointed to the door at the end of the hall and let Mori carry her to it.

Hunny pulled the door open. “Kyo-chan?”

The man turned around to face them, frowning. “Who the hell are you?”


	11. Another Issue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They confront an artist and are in turn confronted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long. I've been trying to work on it despite a bit of writer's block and a few health issues. 
> 
> I watched the live action show, which made me want to include the wrinkle that's discussed toward the end because between that and the manga a certain character comes off in a bit of a bad light. So I thought it would be good to use... not that it wasn't much darker than the implication I gave when my brain decided to run away with the idea. I don't think I'll be including any of those flashbacks, but I did add one.

* * *

“Interesting.”

Haruhi wasn’t expecting that kind of a reaction from Mori, but he did finally set her down, which was a relief. Not that she was, because that man was definitely not Kyoya. He did look a lot like Kyoya’s flamboyant artist persona from yesterday, but the differences were clear enough to her—and she suspected to Mori and Hunny as well. They all knew Kyoya enough to see past his act, but this man here wasn’t acting.

“He was right. I think he might have been able to make it work for anyone other than us,” Hunny said, and Mori nodded. Haruhi frowned, wondering just how much they knew about Kyoya’s plan. They hadn’t said much about what he’d told them, though she could tell they seemed upset by it all the same, upset enough to agree to bring her here.

“I believe I asked a question. Who are you?”

Haruhi almost asked the same thing, but she didn’t think the answer would make any difference. If Kyoya had based his eccentric artist on this guy, she knew what his name was, and it wouldn’t do them any good to have it. “Where is he?”

“He? I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, but this is a private home. An altar to art and the loveliness of all feline creatures in the world. You simply cannot be here.”

“Strangely, I think Kyo-chan was more convincing and we knew he was Kyo-chan,” Hunny said, and Mori nodded in agreement. She wondered exactly what kind of show he’d given them, but then she also had to agree. While she’d known it was Kyoya the whole time, she had also been—reluctantly, of course—impressed by how far he was willing to take his act. Not that him being naked was a part of—damn it, she needed to stop thinking about that.

“I don’t know any Kyo-chan, and I have to say, you’re being excessively rude. This is not your home. You are trespassing and should leave immediately. Why, if I call for security—”

“That would be unwise.” Mori’s words were simple, but the implied threat in them had the artist’s eyes widening in a comic manner, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he went into emo corner like Tamaki used to do.

“You’re big. And scary. And a bit mean, too. I’m glad none of the cats are in here. You’d have scared them to death,” the artist went on, clearly not knowing Mori at all, since their gentle giant had quite a way with animals. “This is terrible, completely terrible! Oh, why does no one take me seriously?”

Haruhi could tell him, but she was sure that was a waste of breath. He did remind her a little of her father, but he was far more annoying while her father was just a bit goofy. “Is there anyone else here? Just tell us that much and we can go.”

“Anyone else?”

She grimaced. “Do we really have to ask again? You were saying you wanted to call for security, but the last time I was here, there wasn’t anyone else, just a bunch of cats. Has that changed?”

“A place like this must have security. Think of those precious cats.”

Haruhi was getting tempted to smack him. “I think—”

“He is correct in at least one respect—you are trespassing.”

She turned, both relieved and a bit worried at hearing that voice. Though it was rather calm, it was cold enough everyone who knew Kyoya knew that the shadow king was very, very angry right now. Not that it showed on his face.

He had that impeccable host club smile on his face, pleasant but extremely dangerous despite the clothes he wore, which once again shocked the hell out of her. What was it with Kyoya and the costumes? Hadn’t he said he hated them? So then why was he once again wearing something so… over the top? Before it was traditional dress, exaggerated to make him seem more artistic, and now he looked just as eccentric but in more of a way that she would have expected from one of the twins. This outfit screamed money as well as insanity, designer _and_ pretentious, almost like he’d gone back in time and become a Western noble. The color was too bright for him to be playing a vampire, but he’d gone so far as to have a short cape and she swore there should be a top hat somewhere.

“Uh...”

Kyoya ignored her, crossing the room to the artist and passing him a glass of some kind of dubious substance. “Here. This is for you.”

“This is organic, right?”

“Of course. I would never disregard the wishes of my most promising discovery, now would I?” Kyoya’s smile stayed bright and cheery, though it was definitely false.

“Excellent.” The artist started to drink, and Kyoya turned back to them, allowing his shadow king glare to show now that the other man couldn’t see it.

Oh, he was _pissed._ Haruhi had known he’d be angry, but as mad as he was, she thought he might just be willing to go against either Hunny or Mori—and he might even win.

“I think we should have this conversation elsewhere.” Kyoya’s voice still held an edge to it. “We’ll offend his artistic sensibilities.”

It was her turn to glare at him. “That’s not funny.”

“Do I look like I’m at all amused right now?”

No. He didn’t. If looks could kill, the three of them would have already been dead so many times over just since they entered this room—not that she thought they’d have lasted this long just from the amount of times she’d seen that glare when they were still in school.

“I told you before I wasn’t going to let you go. None of us want that.”

Kyoya shook his head. “The three of you might not want that, but as you are the only ones who know, you cannot speak for the others. I am almost certain that at least one fashion designer would prefer it if I were dead.”

Hikaru hadn’t forgiven him. That much was true. Still, she knew that he still cared under his anger, and he didn’t want Kyoya dead. Hikaru would need time to forgive him, but she thought he would.

“That’s not true, and you know it. His anger is his way of showing he cares.”

“And are you still as heartless towards him as you were before?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do not be so dense. It was tiresome in the past, but now it just makes me regret being merciful.” Kyoya’s words were accented by the sudden arrival of Mephistopheles, who hissed at her before jumping up on Kyoya’s shoulder. Kyoya reached up to pet him, and the devil cat preened, purring in contentment.

“You know, that’s not exactly—”

Glass shattered, followed by a thump. Kyoya looked back at the artist, completely unfazed by the fact that he was now down on the floor. “Well, that takes care of that for now, at least.”

“You drugged him?”

Kyoya gave her another cold glance. “Why the hell would that surprise you?”

Right. It shouldn’t have. He had done as much to her earlier, hadn’t he?

“You are such a bastard.”

“I told you not to come back for me, but you did. If anyone has a right to be mad now, it’s me. You three are about to ruin everything, and you keep expecting me to be _glad_ about it. I’m not. I want you all gone before there’s no hope of salvaging this mess.”

“You can’t drug us all.”

“I shouldn’t have to, but then somehow I seem to have surrounded myself with fools that don’t know how to listen.”

* * *

Kyoya’s frustration was getting the better of him. His father would be disappointed in his current performance, in how much he’d let show since he walked back into the house to give the artist a few final instructions and found them there. He could feel it all slipping out of his control, and he hated it. He didn’t want to admit it, not even to himself, but it terrified him. He needed control, not just because of the precarious nature of his situation but because of how damaged he was. He was aware enough of his issues to understand how important control was to him. He’d spent so many years being controlled by his father, being taught how to control others and thinking he wanted to do it, that he needed to, and even now that he truly only had himself to worry about, he felt uneasy when things were even slightly off from his plans.

“ _That is the true nature of the world. You either control or you are controlled. As an Ootori, you should be in control.”_

_Kyoya nodded to his father’s words, trying to ignore the pain. He knew better than to let it get to him, but he was always in this situation, always hurting and at his father’s mercy—and there wasn’t mercy in him, that wasn’t the Ootori way. His father was one who controlled everything and everyone, and Kyoya was just a tool, a pawn with the unfortunate luck to be born that bastard’s son._

“ _What is that look for?”_

“ _If you control us, doesn’t that mean that we’re failing?” Kyoya asked, aware this would hurt again but unable to reconcile the contradiction._

_His father laughed, and Kyoya could not control his fear._

A sharp claw from Mephistopheles brought Kyoya back to the present, and he looked back at the others, not sure how much he’d betrayed but refusing to acknowledge it to them all the same. They shouldn’t be here, and anger was appropriate. That was all he needed, at least for now.

“Exactly what do you think you’re doing here?”

“You know why we’re here,” Haruhi said, sounding almost as frustrated as Kyoya was. “It’s not like we could let you go.”

“Haru-chan told us she had a plan that might help and allow you to stay—”

“Did you actually _listen_ to this plan? Because it’s crap, and I don’t care to risk my life so stupidly. I also made it clear that you all would be at risk, and you ignored me. I have no interest in dealing with any of you. This is foolish. You are… the same stupid children I went to school with, nothing more. You haven’t learned the realities of the world, still as deluded as Tamaki in believing that friendship can overcome anything, that we were some kind of _family,_ that the club mattered for more than money and a way to pass the days without boredom. It didn’t. Well, perhaps it was how I kept control of Tamaki and the rest of you since that was necessary if I was going to surpass my brothers and obtain my family’s holdings. That is all it was, so stop glorifying it. You are nothing but tools. I’ve chosen not to use you. My father will not be so… kind.”

Hunny’s eyes seemed to be watering, and Mori put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. Haruhi shook her head, furious.

“You keep saying that, keep trying to deny that we mean anything to you, but that’s not true,” Haruhi said, coming toward him. “If you didn’t care about us, you wouldn’t be trying to protect us by keeping your distance. And if you didn’t care about me, you wouldn’t have been as ‘merciful’ as you were. You said it yourself—you could have hurt me, but you didn’t. You could have killed me and buried me out here and no one would even have known. Well… I’d like to think that my work would have sent someone out here to look for me, and they’d eventually find signs of something even if you’d burned the house down like you threatened, but that’s not the point. The point is that you didn’t hurt me. You don’t want to, not really. You are a good person, Kyoya. I haven’t always believed that, not when you always seemed to be gloating over my debt, but… that’s just the side of you that you felt you had to show to people.”

Kyoya shook his head. “As unwilling as you all are to believe it, that is very much who I am. I don’t need or want your help, and this is the last time I will ask nicely. Leave. Now.”

“No.”

“Damn it, Haruhi—”

“You’ve already got the patsy in place for your father, right? That would only make my plan more viable. Let him accept the money from your family, do the commissions… I still believe you’re better off pretending to agree to it than you are fighting it and running. You’ll only make him more suspicious this way.”

“He may well have been using you to find me, and you want to play into his hands like that? Don’t you have any sense at all?”

“I have plenty. You’re just being stubborn,” Haruhi said, and the others nodded in agreement with her words. “If you would listen to anyone else and not be so damned set on relying only on yourself and pushing us away to save us, we might actually be able to do something. You’re the one that won’t give us anything.”

“Because there’s nothing to give. You don’t understand the situation—”

“If we don’t that’s only because you won’t tell us anything. I told you over and over again to explain it to me, but all you did was refuse. You played games when if you really wanted me to accept it, you would have just told me. Shouldn’t you know that’s the only way I’d ever let it go?”

Kyoya reached up for Mephistopheles, using the cat’s presence to calm himself some. He knew better than that. Telling her the truth would only have made her more determined to stay and help him, to fight this battle for him.

“If Haru-chan’s plan could work, would you stay?”

Kyoya shook his head. “I couldn’t afford to be in contact with you even if this plan of hers worked, which it won’t, so you’d be working to no purpose. Let it go. If you leave now, I can still put him in place to make sure this artist remains unconnected to me and the rest of you, but if you don’t go, then all you’ve done is wreck my plans. I have a few others to fall back on, but you eliminated several in one move. And yes, I am still _very_ angry about that.”

“What other ways do you have besides your father’s death?” Mori asked, getting a wide-eyed stare out of Haruhi. She still managed to be remarkably naive sometimes, and perhaps in other circumstances that would be amusing, but right now it was just further aggravation. “There must be some, or you would not be doing what you are now.”

Kyoya didn’t want to answer that, either. They’d want to be a part of any plans he had to that end, and that was not a complication he wanted. He had to do this alone or nothing he’d set in motion was worth doing.

“If it were as simple as creating a situation where my father was… ruined or otherwise forced to step down from his organization, I would already have done it.” That much Kyoya could say. He’d given consideration to bankrupting his entire family before if only for his own peace of mind—without money, they couldn’t come after him, could they?

And yet it wasn’t that simple. He’d been able to fight and claw his way back from next to nothing before, and he knew he could do it again. He wasn’t the only one in his family capable of it, either. His father had trained them all to be as good as he was, and it wasn’t a lesson any of them could have failed to learn.

“Akito.”

Kyoya grimaced, though it was true that Mori was not and never had been an idiot, even if he was quieter than most.

“What?”

“You mean ‘who,’ and I don’t particularly care to discuss that, either.”

* * *

“You should be sleeping,” Hikaru muttered, yawning, and Kaoru nodded, aware of that, but he wasn’t ready to quit just yet.

They still had a lot to do for this show, but even more than that, he was still worried about what was going on in Japan. He’d gotten a text from Mori earlier, just two words to say Haruhi was fine, and Hunny had followed it up with one full of emojis as usual, so Kaoru knew he shouldn’t be _that_ worried. She was fine and with Hunny and Mori, so he couldn’t say why he was so unsettled.

Maybe it was just the same old thing that always happened when they were reminded of who was missing at their gatherings—they happened more by text these days than anything else, but even so, Kyoya’s voice was absent, and that cast a different sort of shadow over them than he used to do in the past.

Then again, when Kaoru thought about it, everyone in the Ootori family cast some pretty long shadows.

“ _You’re one of those boys from that host club, aren’t you?”_

_Kaoru looked over, hating himself a bit for almost jumping out of his skin. Usually only a couple of people could do that—Mori was surprisingly stealthy for his size, Hunny had that same kind of training, and Kyoya was just damned creepy when he showed up out of nowhere in full Shadow King mode._

“ _Excuse me?”_

“ _One of the Hitachiin twins, yes?” The man studied him, and Kaoru frowned. He was expecting Kaoru to buckle under, wasn’t he? Not that it wasn’t a little tempting, this guy was almost as scary as Kyoya._

_Oh. That explained everything, didn’t it? This was one of Kyoya’s brothers. Kaoru had never met one of them before, but he could tell the resemblance if only in how quietly terrifying this guy was. Not that Kaoru would show that he was even a bit intimidated—he was a Hitachiin twin, after all, and he was used to Kyoya by now, so he was fine._

“ _Kaoru, right?”_

_That did get a reaction from Kaoru against his will. Sure, it wasn’t like someone related to Kyoya would give away he was guessing, but he sounded so certain it was like he knew, which made no sense. They’d never met before, so how could he be so sure? He hadn’t even called Kyoya to say he was coming over. Nothing should have made it clear who he was._

He had a fifty percent chance of guessing right, _Kaoru reminded himself, annoyed._ He didn’t actually know for sure until you reacted.

_Kaoru grimaced, but Kyoya’s brother just smiled, amused. “I don’t really care which one you are. It doesn’t matter. You won’t be able to see Kyoya today.”_

“ _What?”_

_He seemed almost gleeful when he spoke. “Little brother got himself into a bit of trouble, so he won’t be seeing anyone for a while.”_

“ _What?”_

“ _Akito,” Kyoya’s voice was cold, and his eyes darker when he appeared in the doorway. Kaoru could tell he was angry, though he had that look of the host on his face, a perfect smile like he wasn’t bothered at all even if Kaoru knew him well enough by now to know just how angry he really was. “This is my guest. You can go now.”_

“ _If you insist,” Akito said, passing by Kyoya close enough to bump him on purpose, stopping to whisper something in his ear that had the shadow king furious. “I’d remember that if I were you.”_

“ _Not all of us have to be boring to excel at academics,” Kyoya said, though Kaoru wasn’t sure that had anything to do with what Akito had just said. The bastard smirked and walked away, leaving Kyoya behind._

_Kaoru frowned as he went closer to Kyoya. “He tried to tell me you couldn’t see anyone today because you were in trouble.”_

“ _Ignore him. It’s the best way to deal with Akito.”_

_Kaoru shook his head. Sometimes he thought it was impossible to imagine a more screwed up family than his own, but he might just have found one here in the Ootoris. “Is he seriously that jealous of you?”_

_Kyoya seemed amused. “We are three brothers in competition to see who becomes Father’s heir. Akito chose to focus only on school when he was at Ouran. He doesn’t like that I have a life outside studying when he was incapable of managing it. So yes, I suppose you could say that he is jealous.”_

“ _Telling your friends you’re not home to see anyone is kind of messed up, though. And he sounded way too happy that you were in trouble.”_

“ _Honestly, Kaoru, don’t you know when someone’s lying by now?”_

A hand touched him, and he jerked himself out of his thoughts. Or maybe even sleep. He rubbed the back of his neck. He knew Hikaru was watching him. He should just have gone to bed when his twin said something, but now he felt even more uneasy.

“Hunny just sent a bunch of emojis of cats and paintings,” Hikaru said. “They’re still fine, I guess. I haven’t heard from Tamaki in a bit, but he’s probably sleeping. Your turn, Kaoru.”

He nodded and didn’t fight it when his twin tugged him off to bed.

* * *

“Big surprise,” Haruhi muttered, completely frustrated with Kyoya again. “You don’t want to discuss _anything._ Who is Akito?”

“Kyo-chan’s older brother. Not the oldest, that’s Yuichi. And Yuichi seems nice enough, right, Takashi?” Hunny asked, and Mori nodded. “Yuichi never said much, and he was almost always busy being a doctor, so we never saw much of him when we were at Kyo-chan’s house. Saw Akito more. Didn’t like him. He wasn’t a nice person. Kyo-chan has moments where he’s really, truly scary, but he’s also a good person. Akito isn’t.”

Haruhi watched, but Kyoya didn’t react. He also didn’t deny anything Hunny said. “So, wait, you’re more afraid of your brother?”

“Don’t be stupid. Akito is more of the classic bully, brutal at times but rather stupid overall and horribly inept,” Kyoya said, going to the same cabinet where he’d gotten the liquor from yesterday. He poured himself a glass and drank from it without saying more. The silence made it clear there was so much more to be said here, and if she did take what he’d said at face value—she wanted to be sick.

“Your brother hurt you, too?”

“Don’t start with the pity nonsense. The only reason Akito is of concern is what he’d do if my father was eliminated in any way. If Father dies or is forced to step down with the successor unnamed, Akito and Yuichi would have to fight over it. Akito is more likely to win by ‘brute force’ and determination. Yuichi might be more manipulative, though he rarely showed that side of himself. I honestly don’t know if his plan was just to let Akito and me fight over it or if he didn’t even want it. Or perhaps he chose to believe that in the end being the firstborn was enough. I never discussed it with him, and he wouldn’t have told me anyway. The point is—removing my father from the equation could lead to a power struggle that would destabilize the entire Ootori group. If it were just my family, I don’t know that I’d care, but considering the industry in which they have the most holdings...”

Hospitals. If the Ootori Group went under or was lost to infighting, that could destabilize healthcare all across the country. This war with Kyoya’s father could be completely devastating, and not just to him or his immediate family.

So it was not just his father Kyoya was worried about, not just his family or friends.

“You could have mentioned this before.”

“I shouldn’t have to say anything,” Kyoya muttered darkly, returning to his drink. She supposed there was some point to that—having him say it aloud did make it seem obvious. It was all too possible that doing something to remove his father from power would only make things worse. “As it is, moving against my father before he has named a successor is… problematic at best. That is even before one considers the possibility that he has done so in secret.”

Haruhi winced. “Because if he did, he named you to draw you out of hiding. So if he just steps down, he can still force your hand.”

“Yes.”


	12. Pieces of Understanding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More memories and discussion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry this took so long. My health hasn't been great, but also a new game got my brain and sucked all my inspiration away from my in-progress fics and keeps trying to make me write long epic things when I try to contain it to one-shots or less so I can finish my in-progress stuff.
> 
> And then this one took a turn on me and said that part at the end was the end, so... it is the end, even if it probably should have been more.

* * *

Hikaru looked over at his twin, watching Kaoru sleep for a while. He’d thought he was tired enough himself to rest, but for some reason, when it came time to actually sleep, he was wide awake. He supposed it wasn’t that much of a surprise. He’d gotten the same text messages as everyone else, hadn’t he?

He wasn’t worried about Kyoya, not like he thought the others were, but that didn’t mean he didn’t think about it.

The host club was never going to be permanent. They knew that. They hadn’t even wanted to be part of it at first. Tamaki had been stubborn about it, though now that Hikaru looked back on it, his stubbornness wasn’t as interesting as Kyoya’s indifference. Maybe it was the contrast between them that made it so intriguing. Tamaki was insisting on being put past their walls, but Kyoya just kept that polite smile on his face and acted like it didn’t matter at all if they joined.

So maybe, just maybe, a bit of it was them doing it to defy him, to spite him like they did everyone else. They were used to being curiosity pieces, that was nothing new, and it only happened more often after they joined the host club, but for all the new people wishing to get close to them, one of them never seemed to bother, even when they were family and he was the “mother.”

Not that Kyoya didn’t know things about them that few others did, he did.

Hikaru grimaced. He didn’t know why he was thinking about this again. Who the hell cared why they joined or what Kyoya thought of them? It wasn’t enough to keep him around, was it? He’d disappeared, cut off all contact, and maybe Haruhi was right—maybe he was dead. Tamaki couldn’t accept that, and it made Hunny sad, but it made sense, didn’t it?

“ _You are aware that you’re late, aren’t you?”_

_Hikaru glared at the shadow king, not sure what dark corner he’d appeared from and not wanting to know. “You do realize you’re not really our mom, right?”_

“ _I would never wish to be in such a position. I’m not even sure one should wish it on their worst enemy, even if your own mother seems to do very little ‘mothering.’”_

“ _Just because—”_

“ _It’s common among our social circle for that to be true. Mothers are different things to people like Tamaki and Haruhi. Haruhi, for her part, understands the difference. Tamaki does not seem to, but then he is quite delusional. He still thinks this is a family.”_

“ _What is it to you? A game?”_

“ _A business. Isn’t that obvious?”_

_Hikaru supposed it should have been. Kyoya was all about the money, wasn’t he? “So that’s why you’re harassing me about the time? I’m not that late.”_

“ _It is rare for you to arrive without Kaoru. I believe your brother was concerned.”_

“ _Kaoru worries too much.”_

“ _Perhaps so, but then he is less eager than you to embrace his individuality. Even you are not ready for it. You seek to trade it for a chance with her, but as you have never been your own person, you do not know how to be in a relationship.”_

“ _This coming from you? The ‘cool’ type who doesn’t even pretend to like the girls he’s hosting? Yeah, right.”_

“ _Other relationships in this world define us besides romantic ones. I have my share of experience in both romantic and platonic aspects, not that I care to discuss either one. Still, Hikaru, you are not so ignorant. I am the third son, am I not? That is the identity everyone knows. Others know the shadow king. A few even know this annoying term of ‘Mother.’ Which of those is me?”_

“ _Is this a trick question?” Hikaru preferred asking those to getting asked them. “Why are you even bothering with this?”_

“ _Clearly you fail to understand the point. Forget it. Though I do suggest you make sure you are on time for the next host session.”_

_Hikaru walked away grumbling to himself, not sure what any of that was about, but it did make him angry. He’d tell Kaoru about it later._

Hikaru grimaced. He didn’t want to admit it now, but Kyoya had been right. He’d thrown himself into work and his first relationship to get over Haruhi, and that had been a disaster. Not only was he hung up on her at the time, but he’d also learned he wasn’t as independent of Kaoru as he’d thought. Even now sometimes the lines there blurred. Part of Hikaru’s identity would always be tied up in his twin’s, no matter how far apart they were.

“I still hate him.”

“Go to sleep, Hikaru.”

* * *

“So, really, what we need is a way to take out your entire family—don’t look at me like that, Hunny, I didn’t mean kill them—and keep the balance of power stable,” Haruhi summarized, and Kyoya gave her another one of those looks like she was something gross on his shoe. She was reasoning out loud here—he didn’t need to act like that. “I know this isn’t news to you, but we have a bit of catching up to do since we’ve been in the dark about all this.”

“By your own choice. Stop giving me those pitiful looks like I’m the villain here for keeping things from you. All of you knew at least to some degree that my home situation and family was screwed up—you and Mori more than Haruhi, but at the same time, none of you were absent when he hit me in front of nearly the entire school. All that mattered at that point was Tamaki. It did not surprise me, it never did—he was a figurehead for a reason and I never wanted to be one, particularly not in such an enterprise, even if it was a lucrative one. Still, it does irritate me that I must be the one seen as terrible when you were all willingly ignorant of how things were. For all you meddled in Haruhi’s affairs and Tamaki’s, no one ever bothered to meddle in mine.”

“I don’t think any of us thought you… wanted us to.”

“Did you want them to, Haruhi?”

She grimaced. “No, but I’m also not the shadow king. People were terrified of you back then. You wanted it that way.”

Kyoya shook his head, reaching for his cat. “There is a very good reason why I only bother with cats these days. I’ve said enough. I want you to go.”

She forced herself forward, wanting to make a bit of physical contact before he left. This had to be said, and clearly she had to be the one to say it. “Kyoya, I’m sorry. I didn’t… I let myself get blinded by not just Tamaki and my confusing, stupid feelings for him but by… by your myth. I was so sure you could handle everything on your own, that you always had a plan and a few dozen backup plans because you knew all the variables, and you said you liked the challenge of getting the control of the company over your brothers. A part of it was true, but I never looked past that even though I knew the facade wasn’t real. I knew you were a better person than you let show, that you were kind and you cared deeply about those you considered your friends. And… I think I even knew you were hurting, but I didn’t… I didn’t push. I pushed when it was Tamaki, we all did, but no one did that for you when you needed us. You’re right about that. I can’t change what I did, but I can do better now. I _want_ to. I don’t want you to have to hide or to think we don’t care. Maybe it took losing you to understand how much you mattered to all of us—and I won’t claim that’s right; it shouldn’t have been like that—but the point is that we know now.”

Kyoya swallowed. “That doesn’t—”

“Please. Let us help you now. You have a plan, you said as much, and you may have put it all on your shoulders—you would, you took it all on yourself—but it doesn’t have to be that way. We all have resources we can use to help you, even me.”

Kyoya snorted. “You?”

“Don’t look at me like that. You know that I have other connections besides the ones at my law firm. Dad knows a lot of people your father wouldn’t even think to use.”

“We can help,” Mori said, his words firm, and Haruhi wondered if Kyoya would argue with him like he did with her.

“You agreed to back off and let me do what I needed to before, and now you’re here. I clearly can’t trust you two. I thought you would have outgrown your crushes on Haruhi by now, but this is ridiculous.”

Haruhi didn’t need to look to know that both of them were frowning. Kyoya wasn’t that far out of the loop, was he? Both Hunny and Mori were in committed relationships by now, so even if they had felt something for her in the past, they’d moved on from it. That wasn’t why they’d listened to her and come today.

“They didn’t come here for me, Kyoya. They came here for _you.”_

“Also ridiculous.”

“But true,” Hunny said, running true to form and hugging Kyoya from the back since Haruhi was blocking his front. “We let you go because we knew we had to, but since Haru-chan had a way to help us keep you close again, we had to try it, right, Takashi?”

“Right.”

Haruhi faced Kyoya again, aware of how tense and uncomfortable he was right now. “I know it’s easier for you to believe that it’s aso you can stay mad and keep trying to push us away, but you don’t have to do that. We made a mistake before, and yes, we let you down, but that doesn’t mean we always will. You can try and open up to us this time. We weren’t ready before, but we are now.”

“I am not. Get off of me. Both of you.”

* * *

“ _What do you think your little friends would do if they knew about this?” Akito asked, leaning over Kyoya’s shoulder and pressing down on the bruise his father had left there. Kyoya didn’t know how he’d given its location away, and he must have, since Akito hadn’t been there when his father did it. He might have been able to guess, but it was more likely that Kyoya was favoring it unconsciously. He’d done his best to rid himself of all those habits, but some remained in spite of all his father’s lessons._

“ _I’d happily tell them how disgusting you are, but you’re not worth discussing,” Kyoya said, and Akito tightened his grip. Kyoya held down his reaction, refusing to give his brother what he wanted._

“ _Oh, please. Like you haven’t thought about it. Running to your precious, precious friends and begging them to help you.” Akito’s mocking tone suggested he even had proof, but Kyoya figured it was just Akito’s experience talking. He’d have been weak enough to beg for freedom, Kyoya was sure of it. He was also sure it had gotten him nowhere._

“ _I wouldn’t. I’m not that weak.”_

“ _Are you saying I am?”_

_Kyoya looked at him. “What do you think? Only a weak man needs to prey on someone younger than him to win. You’re nothing but a bully in an overpriced suit. It doesn’t even fit you well.”_

“ _Are you really stupid enough to provoke me?”_

“ _You will try to hurt me regardless of what I say,” Kyoya said, shaking his head. Their father was out, and the servants knew not to come near unless requested, so Akito felt free to do as he pleased. If this bothered their father at all, he’d shown no signs of it even though Kyoya was certain he had cameras in every room of the house. “So it doesn’t matter.”_

“ _You disappoint me. Have you given up already, like Yuichi? Pathetic.”_

_Kyoya didn’t care what Yuichi did. He didn’t discount his eldest brother in the game of succession, since Yuichi was just that—the oldest—and by most rights, he’d have gotten it by default. He was also smart and talented, with a growing reputation of his own as a doctor and researcher of note. Yuichi was by no means out of the competition, but he seemed content to play his cards quietly, modest and unassuming._

_Akito was more like a rabid dog about it, barely restrained by the polite civilities required by a family of wealth and good breeding._

“ _I bet you’d run to Suoh the moment he’s confirmed as heir.”_

“ _Don’t be stupid. Suoh is a tool, nothing more.”_

“ _Is that so?” Akito put pressure on the wound again. “Father thinks that you have Suoh under your control, but I’ve heard it’s not like that at all.”_

“ _Excuse me?”_

“ _Would Father think you were so strong if he knew that your nickname in that club of yours is ‘Mother?’”_

_Kyoya fought a grimace. “That is not the only one I have. In fact, the other one is—”_

“ _Mothers are women. Women in general have only got a few functions in this world, but mothers? At best, they are caregivers. You know how Father feels about that. You’d only have to look at Fuyumi to know how useless women are, even if you can’t remember what ours was like.” Akito leaned into Kyoya’s ear. “Haven’t you learned yet what father thinks of weakness? That makes you a bigger fool than I ever thought.”_

“ _It is a stupid nickname used by a fool. The others call me the shadow king.”_

_Akito laughed. “King? I doubt it. You know what else that word mother can mean, don’t you? That’s the real reason you have that nickname, isn’t it? I bet you let Suoh do whatever he pleases to you. You probably even like it.”_

_Kyoya snorted. “You’re fishing, and not in any skillful manner. Can’t you do better than insults? You’re boring me.”_

“ _That was the wrong thing to say,” Akito told him, making sure he felt that bruise all the way down his arms. “I can do a lot worse to you… and even if I don’t, you know Father will.”_

* * *

Kyoya forced Hunny off of him, needing space and distance, wanting to be away from all of this and the memories it kept dragging up for him. He didn’t usually spend all his days thinking about his family and what they’d done. He spoke to cats and painted and at times, that life as Kyoya Ootori, stuck under his father’s control, a pawn in a game he never did fully understand. Even now he sometimes questioned what the point was. All the infighting and competition hadn’t resolved anything, and what good did it actually do his father to have three sons working against each other?

Then he’d start to think about some of the things he’d done for the sake of getting his father’s companies and thought perhaps he had an answer—his father wanted someone like that Kyoya, who had been ruthless enough to take advantage of everyone and who saw people as tools alone, things he could play with and use, not people.

His ambitions should have known no bounds, and he believed his father wanted that as well, wanted a strong successor who would expand their existing empire well beyond what anyone could dream. Kyoya could do it, even now he knew he could.

Except he wouldn’t. He wanted nothing to do with his family now.

“Is the other reason you’re not telling us what your plan is because… you don’t actually _want_ to do it?” Haruhi asked, and he turned to frown at her, wondering how she’d reached that conclusion. “It’s just… now that I think about it—the one way to replace your father and brothers without destroying everything and disrupting healthcare across Japan is to have you take over the company, right? Only you said you don’t want it.”

“I don’t,” Kyoya agreed. “I don’t even know that I want what I had here, but it was better than what I had before or going back to them. I have no interest in saving them. I do not even want to salvage what remains of the healthcare system they arranged. That’s not my problem. I did my part—more than my part—and it was not worth it.”

“You could find someone good to manage it, couldn’t you?” Hunny asked. “You know enough to know what they’d need and who to pick. You could find someone who’d be right for it, and then you could still paint, Kyo-chan.”

Kyoya put a hand to his head. “You still manage to be so naive about things like this.”

Haruhi frowned. “Do you think your father will have you killed as soon as you show yourself? Is that really what you believe will happen?”

“I can’t discount the possibility that he’d figure it was easier simply to eliminate me, no,” Kyoya admitted, and Hunny bit his lip like he might cry. “I am not entirely certain what my father wants besides having me back under his control. The ultimate form of that, of course, is to have the power over whether I live or die.”

Hunny did look like he might cry. “We can’t let him do that. We can protect you.”

“I never said I wanted that.”

“You’re tempting me to say it doesn’t matter what you want,” Haruhi told him. He looked at her. She shrugged. “We’re here. We don’t want to let you leave again. We don’t want you to face this alone. We do want to help. So…”

“To hell with how I feel about this?”

“A bit, yeah,” she said, smiling at him, and he cursed her for that smile. She’d been able to use it to manipulate most of the host club without even knowing it. She didn’t seem to understand how deep any of their feelings were towards her, not even when she started dating Tamaki.

“ _You need a new goal, that’s all.”_ She’d said that to him, and he’d been furious at the time, still was if he was honest about it. Nothing was as simple as setting a new goal for himself. After what should have been his triumph in wresting his family’s business from his father and basically taking the place of heir for himself, he’d found it a hollow victory. He’d lost his only purpose in life, and he’d seen no reason to fill it with his “hobby,” if the host club could even be called that.

And the only other thing he’d known he wanted…

No, Kyoya wouldn’t think about that, either.

“Fine. Let’s put you in charge of the Ootori Group, then, Haruhi.”

“What?”


	13. Dangerous Ideas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haruhi reacts to Kyoya's suggestion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of those chapters where the end came to me, and it was a good cliffhanger of sorts but the rest of it didn't want to get itself written. I tried, and I thought I had it, but it still took me about a week after getting home from my semi-awful vacation to accomplish it.
> 
> Still, I think it is kind of worth it... at least for some parts...

* * *

“ _What is the status of the Fujioka girl?”_

“ _She maintains her high marks and standing in her class so she can remain at Ouran. Her scholarship is not in question.”_

_His father came over to his side, his hand falling on Kyoya’s shoulder as a warning. He forced himself to stay still and not react, though he was well aware that wasn’t the response his father wanted nor was it one that would spare him from the Ootori’s wrath. Pain would come soon enough, and he could not stop it, not when he could not tell his father what he expected to hear._

_Kyoya could not change Haruhi’s feelings, even if he wished to, and while he had some degree of confidence that this infatuation with Tamaki would not and could not last, he knew that playing the long game was not what his father wanted. He demanded Kyoya make Haruhi his now, not later, and he would not listen to any excuses as to why that was not already done._

_Mentioning Haruhi’s stubbornness would only increase his father’s desire to subjugate her and the perception of Kyoya’s failure._

“ _That is not what I meant.”_

“ _Suoh remains infatuated but unable to articulate that, so he has not made any official declaration. That is not an issue, nor should it be any time soon as he has once more retreated into the delusion that he is her ‘father,’ despite all evidence to the contrary. It makes him remarkably easy to manipulate.”_

“ _Blocking Suoh is only one of your tasks. You are supposed to make her your own.”_

_Kyoya bit back the urge to ask his father why he had not simply tried to arrange the marriage through her family. He already knew how well that would go over, since Haruhi was so hardheaded. She wouldn’t want some rich bastard “controlling” her life. She wouldn’t see the value in the alliance or want the money. Ryoji was easier to work with, very susceptible to manipulation, but even he would have difficulty convincing Haruhi the choice was to her benefit._

_Not that it was. Kyoya was well aware of what his father intended for Haruhi. He would destroy her to punish her for her crime of standing up for Kyoya. That defiance could not stand, nor would it if his father had his way. The only surprise was that he was using Kyoya to do it._

“ _I have a plan,” Kyoya said. That much was true. He planned to do nothing more than keep Haruhi and Tamaki from being official for now. If Kyoya were to acquire her affection, he knew it would take some time, as she was too focused to be interested in being romantic before she had achieved her goal of becoming a lawyer, and it would also have to wait until after this thing with Tamaki had run its course._

“ _That is not good enough. It should have been done by now. You are not unattractive. You have every advantage as an Ootori—money, influence, and power. You have had plenty of others by now. I know you know how to seduce anyone you have to, so why have you not done so with her?”_

“ _Is it your intention to have me impregnate her so that we must rush a wedding?”_

“ _Don’t be stupid.”_

“ _Then why would you want me merely to seduce her? I don’t doubt I could get her into my bed easily enough, but you are speaking of marriage. Such a long term commitment requires a long term plan, which I have.”_

“ _I see.”_

_His father was clearly waiting for him to explain it. The truth was out of the question, of course. That damned girl. Why did everyone have to fall for her, anyway? Even after Tamaki was out of consideration, there were others who would make the same play, Hikaru in particular, but Kyoya didn’t count Kaoru out even if he’d taken a willing backseat to his brother, nor was Mori out of contention, either. In fact, he had the most likely chance of success in Kyoya’s mind. If Hunny’s burgeoning relationship with Reiko continued, then he was well out of the running, but Mori’s quiet stability had much appeal for a practical woman like Haruhi. In addition, Kyoya believed that Hikaru’s interest in Haruhi was not so much in the girl herself but in the way she’d seen past the two of them as twins and as individuals. Others could also accomplish this feat—Kyoya had known the difference between them almost from the beginning, but it was more profitable to him to keep them as codependent as they were._

_He felt an unpleasant pang at the thought, trying not to react. He was ruthless for many reasons. He had to be. Weakness was not something he could afford, even if his so-called friends would have hated him for knowing he’d deliberately chosen to keep perpetuating their mistakes for his own benefit._

_Then again, they should have known that was who Kyoya was. That was no secret._

“ _Kyoya.”_

_He swallowed and looked up at his father. “Yes?”_

“ _Do I need to put a time limit on this? You seem unwilling to do what I ask, and if that is true, then I can offer you several reasons to reconsider that decision.”_

“ _It is not necessary. I told you I had a plan. It needs time, that is all. I can get anything I want.”_

“ _Is that the problem, then? You don’t want her enough?”_

* * *

“ _Kyoya?”_

_He didn’t look up from his laptop. Tamaki was not exactly someone he wanted to see right now. He was well aware of how precarious his position was, with his father becoming more and more insistent about the Haruhi matter as time progressed while she became more and more obvious about her feelings for Tamaki._

_Watching that had become almost physically painful._

“ _What?” Kyoya snapped the word out, already betraying more frustration than he should have. His father’s voice immediately rose in his head to remind him of how weak he was to show so much. No one was supposed to know how he felt. Even without his father, Kyoya didn’t want anyone knowing how damned miserable he was. Who the hell even cared? Not anyone in the host club, that was for damned sure._

“ _Have you ever been in love?”_

_Kyoya would have broken his pen if he’d been writing instead of typing. “Who the hell put you up to asking me that, you moron?”_

_Tamaki frowned. “You don’t have to be like that about it. No one put me up to it. I just thought… maybe you’d felt something for someone sometime. I already know you’re not the person you pretend to be. All those smiles are false.”_

“ _And yet you keep talking to me. Why?”_

“ _Well, I… We’re friends, remember?”_

“ _Are we?”_

_Tamaki nodded so fast he should have broken his own neck. “Yes, of course we are. I just… I wanted to know what you think about love. Not just the love we give our girls, but the special love of a man and a woman—”_

“ _You are a child. Kindly grow up before you start asking about such nonsense. And by the time you have, you won’t need to.”_

“ _Kyoya.” Tamaki pouted, sounding hurt. “That’s not—”_

“ _I have nothing to say on the subject of love. You should already know that it is false and intangible, that it makes fools of everyone, but you never learn. You live in this great delusion and somehow everything still works out for you as though you were blessed by fate itself. You will have all you want in spite of your inadequacy, and the rest of us will strive for nothing.”_

_Tamaki stared at him. “You don’t actually—”_

“ _I am done,” Kyoya said, and as he did, he realized he meant it. He wasn’t just talking about one thing or a couple, but everything. He was done with his father, done with pretending to care about his family or their business, done with the host club, done with school._

_He wanted out. He had thought he only wanted one thing anymore, something he knew he’d never get, but now he knew there was something else he wanted, something far less tangible but more attainable all the same._

_He wanted to get as far away from here as he could get, and once he did, he was never coming back. To hell with it all._

* * *

 

“This habit of asking what and gaping your mouth like a fish is very unattractive. Considering your lack of femininity, you might want to work on that,” Kyoya said, and Haruhi glared at him. She knew he was a smug bastard, he had been ever since she knew him, and she shouldn’t let that get to her, especially not after knowing that it was all a front anyway—Kyoya might act assured, but he was hurting deeply. They’d hurt him that much, not just his family, and she wasn’t sure they had any way of convincing him to give them a chance to make it right.

“I think anyone would be a _little_ confused when you drop that kind of bomb on them. Did you just pick me at random? You know I’m a lawyer. Not a businesswoman.”

“You have ethics, understanding, and a knowledge of law. You’d manage better than most. You do not have to be the ruthless figurehead my father wanted. Currently, I can see no other viable options—Father is out, Akito’s out, trying to place Yuichi there will leave him open to Akito’s attacks and honestly, he would do better where he is in research rather than pulling him from the field to run the business end. No, you are almost… ideal. Even more so in the fact that you could even _be_ an Ootori, should it be necessary.”

She frowned. “This is not one of those crazy conspiracies where I’m secretly the heir to some company or rich family like those rumors that went around after I was revealed to be a girl. I am just a commoner, and I’m fine with that. I’m not related to you at all.”

“Of course not. You remain painfully dense about some things,” Kyoya muttered, pulling away to refill his glass. He took a sip from it, and the leopard bumped against his legs. “Yes, Chi. You don’t even speak my language, but you understand, don’t you?”

Haruhi frowned, aware he was insulting her again. She took a deep breath, trying to keep herself calm. “I am allowed to say you’re not going to produce me as some long lost relative and heiress, you know. I won’t do that.”

“Haru-chan, that’s not what he meant at all,” Hunny said, and Mori nodded, making Haruhi’s stomach plummet when she understood the implication.

Oh, she did feel stupid now, but… Did Kyoya… he wasn’t willing to come forward, so…

“You don’t really expect me to seduce your brother, do you?” Haruhi asked, and when Kyoya gave her a look like she was an idiot again, she almost choked. “Well, it’s not like I thought you were interested in me. You’ve made it quite clear I don’t have any appeal for you, so why are you acting like I’m dumb for suggesting—Oh, god, tell me you didn’t mean your father.”

He started laughing, so did Hunny, though Mori barely smiled. She grimaced, still feeling sick, but at least they were enjoying themselves. That was a bit familiar, wasn’t it? She remembered many times like this during her days in the host club.

“No, I do not believe my father intends to marry again. Even were there many advantages to such a thing, he isn’t interested in anything so useless as another wife. Don’t look at me like that. I am stating his opinion—which in his mind is as good as fact. Women are only of interest to him if they have something he can use. As he has no real need of another heir, there is little point in marrying a younger woman, and should any his age be free, they likely already have heirs of their own they’re working to advance, just like in the case of Tamaki’s grandmother. She had some strength to her, but even she was not much in my father’s very sexist eyes. He did intend other alliances, though through his children. Yuichi made his, as did Fuyumi. I can only assume negotiations fell through for Akito’s and that was hushed up to spare both families the shame of it.”

“Well… I am relieved,” Haruhi said, because she was. She couldn’t imagine much worse than being married to Kyoya’s father, not just for herself but for anyone, and she had to wonder how Kyoya’s mother had been able to stand it long enough to give that bastard four kids. Or—wait, had his father married twice? Was that the reason for the gap between his siblings’ ages and his? She was struck again by how little she actually knew of Kyoya, almost overwhelmed by the sense of guilt she felt in knowing that was her own fault.

She hadn’t made enough of an effort to know him when she could have, and she had no one to blame for that but herself. Would Kyoya even let her have that chance now? He was fighting them, trying hard to push them away.

“You can think of someone else, can’t you? Surely there’s someone in your family’s organization that is qualified even if they’re not family themselves. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an Ootori, does it? The main issue is maintaining stability despite removing your father and brothers from the equation.”

“I don’t keep track of all my father’s employees. I monitor some of the private police force, considering that they’re still looking for me, but I don’t keep records of every doctor or administrator in the organization. I don’t care that much about what they’re doing. As long as the system hasn’t collapsed, it’s nothing to me.”

Haruhi studied him. “And if it did collapse, would you do something about it?”

“I have enough money to subsidize it if necessary. I can stabilize it, but I won’t take it over. I am done playing that game. It’s a funny thing about the carrot on the stick… by the time you get it, it has lost its taste. In fact, it’s rotten.”

She supposed he knew that better than anyone, though she would admit to some similar feelings. She’d been surprised by the emptiness she felt once she became a lawyer, but for Kyoya, that sense went deeper, like a wound. She supposed that was because he hadn’t just chosen his path, like she had in admiration of his mother. He’d been actively molded into someone who would want the company, and then he’d won and gotten it only to find out it meant nothing.

She swallowed. “All right, if what it takes is someone who can control the company and have people’s approval, then… let’s do that. I’m sure we can find someone.”

Kyoya’s look suggested otherwise. “Well, then, have fun with that. Go ahead and go and forget you ever saw me again.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Haruhi said, aware of Hunny nodding vigorously as he made to cling to Kyoya again. Kyoya stepped back and the leopard placed herself between the two of them. “You may think we’re fools. And you are understandably angry with us for letting you down back then. I don’t even know if it’s possible to prove to you that we won’t do it again, not when you are so determined to keep us out of your plan and your life, but don’t expect us to just forget. We can’t forget. You may have been the shadow king, but even in the shadows you had a presence in our lives. That isn’t something that we just skip over. Every one of us missed you. Even Hikaru, though he’s mostly mad at you. It’s… I want a chance to make things right, but this isn’t just about that. You shouldn’t have to live your life in fear of your father.”

“I already told you I wasn’t afraid of what he’d do to me.”

She almost rolled her eyes. “I know, but you _are_ afraid of what he’d do to us, right? As angry as you are, you care about us enough to be worried about what he’d do to us. You said we were all at risk, but if we are, then let us do something about it. We can work together to end this.”

“That’s really what you want?”

Kyoya’s look had her suddenly doubting her own words. She wasn’t afraid of him, never had been, even if she did worry a lot about the debt he always hung over her head. Still, as he studied her, she felt uneasy, knowing that whatever was coming could not be good. No, she didn’t think he would hurt her, but that gleam in his eye was almost gleeful in how malicious it seemed.

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“You’re going to let us help you?”

“Maybe.” Kyoya’s smirk was dangerous, and Haruhi willed herself not to fold under it. She wouldn’t give in. He might be trying to scare them off, but she wasn’t about to let him do that. “If you agree to my terms, of course.”

“It would be to your benefit, wouldn’t it?” Haruhi gave a shaky laugh. “That’s so you—at least the you that you think you have to be in front of everyone. Fine. We agree.”

“Without hearing the terms?”

She tried not to grimace. Yes, that was a mistake with Kyoya, but she did understand by now that doing this would mean accepting his terms, since he would find a way to ditch them and hide forever if they didn’t. He was good at manipulation, and he’d already proven he could disappear if he wanted to. He would if they let him.

So they wouldn’t let him.

“Yes.”

He laughed. “Oh, you are all such fools.”

“Maybe so,” she agreed, “but that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop, no matter how sadistic you sound when you laugh.”

His smile got wider. He seemed to be enjoying this, living up to his nickname in full.

“No, no, this is actually perfect, isn’t it? If you are so damned determined to put a bulls-eye on yourself, then by all means, let us do it.” Kyoya stepped closer to her. She took an involuntary step backward and bumped the wall. Damn. He had her cornered, and she definitely felt flustered. “We’ll do the works. You can marry me and step forward as _my_ heir to lay claim to the great empire. I can’t wait to see what he does with that.”

She forced herself to meet his gaze and call his bluff. “Fine. Let’s do it.”


	14. Pale Imitations of the Things Desired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That thin line between what you think you want and need and what you actually have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um... I know this has taken a long time to arrive. I actually did play out a few other ways the conversation between Kyoya and Haruhi after the last chapter could go, and I hated all of them. Then, as I was trying and failing to sleep the other night (yay, insomnia) this came to me. The dialogue was better in my head, and I tried to write it down before exhaustion got the better of me, but I didn't. So I have this version, and it is both what I pictured and not.
> 
> I did do a couple flashbacks again, wanting to explore a bit of what it was like between Kyoya and Haruhi not long before he left. It seemed fitting with the end, at least to me.

* * *

_Kyoya checked his watch again, impatience trying to overtake him as the pain from last night’s reminder flared up again. His father had made it clear that Kyoya’s plan for Haruhi was not acceptable, and if he didn’t change things, things would become much worse for both of them. For his part, he was used to his father, but she was not. She didn’t know their world, shouldn’t ever have to know it, but his father would bring her in and damn them all._

_He knew that last statement seemed dramatic, but he did think his father had learned just how much value Haruhi had to everyone in the host club. Most of them loved her, and anything done to her would echo back through the others._

_Damn her for being so important. If she wasn’t, he wouldn’t have to worry, but since she was, since she mattered so damned much to everyone, if he did not act, he would let his father destroy them all. Perhaps one person, if it was just Tamaki, for instance, he might be able to overlook it, but the cost was too high._

“ _Kyoya-senpai? Are you waiting for Tamaki-senpai?”_

_Kyoya bit back saying something about the idiot and put on a charming smile instead. “No, of course not. He has his own transportation, after all. I was waiting for you.”_

“ _Me?” Her eyes went wide. “I… But… Is this about my debt?”_

_He laughed. “Dear Haruhi. Can you have forgotten already? Your debt is completely cleared. That was handled by Miss Tonnerre last spring, after all.”_

_She flushed. “Oh. Right. I just… I mean, before when you were waiting for me, I always figured it was something to do with my debt, and I… I don’t know why I forgot. It’s not like I didn’t know earlier. I did. I...”_

“ _Just assume that any interest I might have in you has to be for a monetary reason?”_

“ _Yes.” Her eyes widened, and she grimaced. “I mean, no. I actually don’t. Not anymore. I have seen other sides to you, and if you were really all about money, why would you have talked Tamaki out of those costumes he wanted us to wear? You were the one to say that showing a little skin makes for more profit, but you actually talked him out of that one, which I do have to thank you for because even if they know I’m a girl now… It was too much.”_

“ _You do not owe me thanks.” Kyoya had his own reasons for objecting to the outfit. He would have liked to have seen her in it, he couldn’t deny that, but a few of the bruises had developed above his waist, making being shirtless for today’s event impossible._

“ _There you go again, pretending to not to be nice. Why do you go to all that trouble, anyway?”_

“ _I am not nice. I am a soul-sucking vampire bent only on profit, remember?”_

_She laughed. “Well, as much as I think that a lot of girls would like to see you dressed up as a vampire, I don’t buy it.”_

“ _No? Isn’t a vampire the perfect look for a shadow king?”_

_She shook her head. “No. I mean, you pull off the Victorian look pretty good, so it’s not like that doesn’t suit you, but somehow I think a vampire is too… common. You’re a rarer sort of creature, you know. Something from an obscure legend but far more dangerous…”_

“ _Is that so?” Kyoya pushed up his glasses. “It intrigues me—since when are you so interested in our costuming, anyway?”_

_She stopped to think about that. “Um… I guess, you know, now that I am in the club by choice, it’s not so bad? I mean, when I first joined, I was forced in, and I hated it. I hated almost all of you, too.”_

“ _Ah, you were charmed by Hunny-senpai and did not see any reason to hate Mori-senpai, yes?”_

“ _Well, yes.” She grimaced. “Still, it’s not like I didn’t learn to see past the twins and Tamaki can actually be charming when he’s not being an idiot or growing mushrooms.”_

“ _Does such a time truly exist?”_

_She giggled. That wasn’t just laughter. It was a true giggle. “You’re terrible, Kyoya-senpai.”_

“ _Hmm. So your impression of me has not changed.”_

“ _That’s not true at all,” she objected, shaking her head in denial. “I know you a lot better now, even if you still refuse to say much about yourself. I’ve seen another side to you. I did that day at the mall, and that… At first you irritated me, but I also learned a lot. It was different seeing you with your guard down, no host club smile in place for anyone we met. And then, when you helped that woman… That was really interesting.”_

“ _I told you. She was a valuable Ootori family client,” Kyoya said. Though it was his intention to allow the man his father had substituted for one of his usual bodyguards to see him making an effort to win Haruhi over—something she was unintentionally aiding by their casual conversation that could, he sincerely hoped, pass almost for flirting—he could not allow that man to hear him described as kind._

“ _Sure that’s all it was. You know I know better.” She met his gaze head on. “Like today. You waited for me because it’s going to rain, didn’t you? You know how I get in thunderstorms, so you wanted to make sure I wasn’t caught in the rain.”_

“ _Your opinion of my altruism never ceases to amaze me.” Kyoya smiled, though, reaching for the door handle. “In that case, after you.”_

_She rolled her eyes and got in, sitting down and scooting over into the middle though not quite to the other side of the car. Intriguing. He followed after her, taking his own position against the door and trying to ignore how badly his body was hurting again._

“ _This is the side of you I’d actually like to see more of,” Haruhi admitted, fiddling with her bag as she spoke, not looking at him. “The kind side.”_

“ _Is that so?” The bodyguard would be back in the car any second now, so he had to stop this conversation even as much as it worked in his favor. “Then perhaps you should attend tomorrow night’s charity function. You can see all sorts of examples of me being kind.”_

_She snorted. “Yeah, right. That’s just for show, and why would I want to be at something like that?”_

“ _Consider it good practice for when you become a lawyer. Certain functions will be expected of you in that role, and why not get accustomed to them now? It will be easier later, and if you are concerned, there will be others from the club in attendance as well.”_

_She studied him. “Okay, level with me. Why do you really want me to come?”_

_Because if he didn’t get her to agree, his father would force both of them into something far worse. He leaned closer to her, careful to keep his words for her only to hear. “I thought you wanted to see my kind side.”_

_She nodded. “I do, but that’s not why you’re asking me, is it?”_

_In a sense, it was. Still, he smiled disarmingly and lied instead. “Oh, you know how it is. Those things are so exceptionally boring, and at least if you were present, there would be some entertainment value in the evening.”_

_She grimaced. “Nice. That’s really what you want to use me for?”_

_No, it wasn’t. He considered his next words carefully. “Tell me, is there actually a reason that would convince you to attend?”_

“ _The truth, maybe.”_

_He nodded. Of course she’d say that. He couldn’t tell her that, though. Not all of it. Even a condensed form was too much to say aloud. He would have to depend on Haruhi’s own nature and use it against her as much as possible. “If you were there, I would not have to pretend at being kind.”_

_She stared at him. “Does that mean…?”_

“ _Yes.”_

_That got a smile from her. “Then maybe I should go.”_

_He found himself smiling in return. He’d won, no small victory here, since this was essential, but he’d also gotten her to agree without any kind of coercion, which would just have made the end goal further out of reach. As it was, he would have to say he’d made considerable progress in one single conversation. Not enough, no, but given their current proximity and her agreement, it should appease his father for now._

“ _Maybe you should.”_

_The car stopped, and they both looked over at the same time to see her apartment building before them. That had gone much quicker than anticipated. Still, he could not fault it when he got the result that he wanted._

“ _Oh. We’re here,” Haruhi said, rather unnecessarily. She started toward the door, not going for her own but actually climbing over him as she attempted to leave. His door was next to the sidewalk, and the bodyguard was already getting out to open it, but her action still surprised him._

_Judging by the look she gave him as she passed closer to him, she was a bit surprised herself, or at least she regretted her decision. He resisted the urge to smirk. Haruhi liked the kinder side of him, which he would not be showing if he teased her._

_She as much as fell out as the door opened. “Um, thank you for the ride, senpai.”_

“ _Anytime,” Kyoya told her, since it would be much easier to create the illusion that they were dating if she allowed him to take her home more often._

_She frowned. “Any?”_

_He nodded, making a more graceful exit from the car than she had. He put a hand on her back as he guided her toward the staircase. “You needn’t fear my response so much. Your company is not entirely disagreeable—in some ways it is far more tolerable than the other members of the club. You have a maturity that most of them lack.”_

“ _I already said I’d go. You don’t have to flatter me.”_

“ _You know that I don’t flatter anyone without purpose, and since as you have just pointed out, you have already agreed, therefore I got what I wanted, didn’t I? So why would I bother with needless flattery?” Kyoya shook his head. “I wouldn’t. What I said is true, no more and no less. You needn’t fear my motives. I am simply having a conversation.”_

“ _It’s hard to believe you’d do something without gaining from it.”_

“ _Yet I already got what I wanted. What more is there to gain?”_

“ _I have no idea,” she admitted as she stopped to dig out her keys. “Are you sure you’re feeling well? Maybe you’re sick? No, why would you do this when you weren’t feeling good? Is it really just about getting me to go with you? I already agreed, so… I don’t get it.”_

_He had to admit he enjoyed confusing her, though it was a lie to say he didn’t have a motive now. He needed to gain entry to her home as a way of improving the report that would be given to his father, and he would get it. He had no other choice. If that meant exploiting her apparent weakness for “kind” Kyoya, he would do it._

“ _I suppose while I did mention the fact that others would be present, I didn’t actually say there might arise some disagreement as to who should escort you.”_

_She pushed the door open. “And you wanted to win?”_

“ _Naturally. I am an Ootori, after all.”_

_She laughed. “Okay, that sounds like you, but why am I only hearing about this now if everyone is going to be fighting over me?”_

“ _Why would I let anyone else have advance notice?”_

“ _Yeah, that also sounds like you,” she said with another smile. “I… You have seen me home now, senpai. Thank you.”_

“ _Are you afraid to let me see you in a thunderstorm? Pity. Here I thought I’d been doing excellent work distracting you. You didn’t even notice the rain, or so it seemed until just now.”_

“ _I… You’re right. I didn’t, but… don’t you have places to be? Homework to do?”_

_His homework was entirely pointless if he did not prove to his father that he could seduce Haruhi, so he could care less. True, his father would punish him if his grades slipped, but he didn’t care about that, either. What was new in it? Nothing. The only reason he acted at all was because if he did not, others would pay the price as well._

_She would pay it._

“ _Nothing I cannot do here if you want me to stay.”_

_She swallowed, wincing. “I… Yes. Please stay.”_

_And though he grinned in triumph, he felt sick. He’d won, but he felt no sense of victory in it, only a heavy defeat. This was only an illusion, after all. She didn’t want him here because she wanted to be with him. She just didn’t want to be alone in the storm. And even if she did want him, what good did it do Kyoya to give his father what he wanted? It was never enough, no matter how good he was at school, at extracurricular activities, at the social events demanded of him as an Ootori. It would never be enough._

* * *

_Kyoya’s body was aching even more from hours on an uncomfortable chair, the price of hours spent in Haruhi’s commoner apartment. He’d ended up staying until Ryoji got home, and of course he then wanted to socialize, too, despite Haruhi’s attempts to get him to go straight to bed. Truly, Kyoya had not minded talking to the other man, but he was in pain, and it took everything he had to keep that from showing with his fatigue. Haruhi had even seemed a bit concerned when he left, but he dismissed it. This was nothing. He had suffered worse._

_This cycle never ended, after all._

“ _It is late.”_

_Kyoya looked over at his father. How long had the Ootori been waiting up for him? Hours? Then he would be very angry, and this night would become even longer. Still, perhaps what he had to say would be enough._

“ _Fujioka-chan will be accompanying me to the charity dinner tomorrow night.”_

“ _I already know that,” his father said, coming close to him. “You were able to accomplish that rather quickly, weren’t you?”_

“ _I told you I could do it.”_

“ _Yes, and you did not before,” his father said, forcing Kyoya to take a step back and hit the wall. Damn it. “You could have given me what I asked for long ago.”_

_Kyoya shook his head. “No. I told you this would take time, and it will. If I’d pursued her openly before, she’d have rejected me. She doesn’t see this as a date, or she would have said no. She’s very set on not dating before she graduates. That’s not just about me or Suoh. It’s everyone. She wants her dream of being a lawyer first.”_

“ _And you will give it to her?”_

_Yes._

“ _No. I am perfectly content to abuse her lack of understanding to my advantage. I will get her to go on dates with me without realizing they are dates, and she won’t even realize we’re in a relationship until it’s already too late.” Kyoya could have done it, just as he said. He felt it was a viable strategy that might even overcome her feelings for Tamaki even as it destroyed the host club. They’d never forgive him for taking her from them, especially with such underhanded means. And that idiot Tamaki…_

“ _So that is your long-term plan,” his father said, and Kyoya nodded. “You are giving her too much power.”_

“ _She isn’t in control. She simply needs the right sort of manipulation, and if it achieves what you want, why does it matter how I do it?”_

_That was a dangerous thing to ask. His father’s hand went to the back of Kyoya’s neck. “How long do you think this will take?”_

“ _I would give it until she graduates,” Kyoya said, knowing full well the answer would anger his father, but if he didn’t try for as much time as possible, he’d get none at all._

“ _Unacceptable.”_

“ _Then perhaps when I graduate? She might feel that distance is—”_

_His father pressed his fingers against Kyoya’s throat, cutting off what he was going to say. “You have until you turn eighteen. That is when your engagement will be announced. You already know this. If you fail and disgrace the Ootori name...”_

“ _I won’t.” Kyoya forced the words out. He could make this work. He could fool his father into thinking it was real. He could even talk Haruhi into agreeing for appearance’s sake—he had to. He had no other choice._

“ _Good,” his father said, letting go of his neck. Kyoya’s body instinctively gasped for air as his father glared at him in disappointment. He wouldn’t have done it if he could have controlled his reaction, but there was little to do when he’d been choked like that, and now he’d have to rearrange the cosplay again and find some way of covering the inevitable bruise so he could attend the charity dinner, too. Damn it._

_He resisted the urge to touch his neck and started to leave for his room._

“ _I didn’t say you could go.”_

_Kyoya tried not to flinch. “It is very late, Father, and we both have obligations tomorrow. I did what you asked, and I would like to rest now.”_

“ _It is too late to ask for permission, and you have not, in fact, done what I asked. You did make progress, but only after I motivated you. And I would not want you to lose focus, Kyoya, so I will make sure you know just how important this is.”_

“ _I already do. You’re too impatient. Even you have to know the value of a long-term strategy and that not everything is obtainable in an instant with money or even influence. Some things need special handling, but I have it under control and—”_

“ _You consider this under control?” His father scoffed. “When you are seconds from begging me to spare you the punishment you deserve for your failure and defiance? You could have had that girl at any time, but you ignored me and did as you wished. You coddle her when you know better than to give someone else that much power. She’s in control, not you, and you’re a fool for thinking otherwise. Ootoris should never be fools. You disappoint me.”_

_Kyoya knew there were no words to defend against that accusation. He had allowed Haruhi’s wishes to determine his plans and actions. He had made concessions and refused to use methods she’d hate to get what he needed. He was a fool._

_Whatever was now coming at his father’s hands… he deserved it._

* * *

“You must be incredibly stupid,” Kyoya said, and Haruhi tried not to flinch under his gaze. He was the one who was supposed to be faltering, even just a blink to show some surprise. She’d called his bluff, and he couldn’t have wanted that, could he? “Or pathetically desperate.”

“Maybe.” She wasn’t sure she could deny it when she was willing to do just about anything to keep him in their lives this time. She hadn’t figured he’d actually want to marry her even if he had put her name forward as the next head of the Ootori Group. “Maybe I just want to prove to you that I mean what I say. I didn’t do enough before, but I want to now.”

He scoffed. “You think this pitiful display is going to be enough to stand against everything? Against him? You can’t even face me properly. There’s no way you’d convince him of a damned thing. Go away and stop wasting all of our time.”

“You haven’t even given me a chance,” Haruhi protested. “First you play games trying to convince me it’s not you, you drug me, abandon me, and then you put my name out as the future head of the Ootori group. You’ve thrown dozens of loops at me in the space of less than a day, and maybe I didn’t cope with all of them with perfect grace, but you haven’t, either. You’d rather run like a coward than try anything, and how the hell will you know if it works if you don’t try?”

“Haru-chan is right,” Hunny said. “We have to try.”

“Yes.”

It was a bit of a relief to know she still had Hunny and Mori’s support, even if at this point their plan was crazy. She didn’t think Kyoya would actually hold to it. He didn’t want to marry anyone, and certainly not her. She wasn’t the least bit desirable to him, not even as someone to use. That actually hurt, but she didn’t care. She still needed to do what she could to help him.

“You want to _try,”_ Kyoya repeated, his mockery for that word clear. “You’re so certain you can convince me that you can fool my father, are you? And how do you expect to do that? You still look scared for all your talk of cowardice.”

“I figured you’d set the terms of whatever test you’re about to demand.” She shrugged. “And just because I might be a little scared doesn’t mean I won’t follow through. Sometimes you have to be afraid in order to fight for what you really want. My mother taught me that, too. Well, and my dad. If you knew the story of how they met and started dating—”

“I do not care.”

“Fine. You don’t have to. I just want…” _To get past all these walls. To atone for my mistakes. For not realizing that you were hurting as badly as you were even when we spent long hours together. For letting hormones get in the way of friendship and basic decency. To be the person I should have been instead of the idiot I was. To protect you from your father, to keep you close._

“You just want… what, exactly?”

“All of that and more,” she said aloud, and he frowned at her. She sighed. “Just give me the damned test already, Kyoya. If I fail it, then… we’ll figure something else out, but you’re the one holding back now, not me. I agreed—to your terms, to what you think is necessary. I’ll meet you more than halfway—but you have to give me something here.”

He studied her, and that look was unsettling at best. She felt like she’d just been sized up like a hunter did prey, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he was looking for a weakness to exploit. She had plenty but couldn’t afford to give into them now.

“I admit I am curious,” he said after long enough to make her regret her words. “Can you actually act with enough conviction? Oh, you were a host, but not like the rest of us. Certainly not like me. That is what you will need, not your natural ability. You have to hide all that you think and feel and are. Let only what is expected to be seen show through.”

His father was a monster. She swore they’d do something about him, stop him. He needed to be in prison or worse. She didn’t want Kyoya to kill him, but she was starting to think death was too good for that man.

“So, what, you think I can’t act like a professional businesswoman in public? I know I didn’t make the best impression here, but you made that impossible—you and the cats.”

He almost seemed to smile at that, which would have been a relief if he hadn’t spoken. “So I unnerve you still. That is a problem. How can you act like my wife if you are afraid of me? Relegating you to a life outside the public eye like he did his wives before their unfortunate deaths is not possible in this case.”

“I have a sudden feeling I don’t want to know what happened to your mother.”

“Likely not,” he agreed, his eyes still focused on her. “No, I don’t think you can do this, but since you insist...”

That was all the warning she got before he closed what little distance there was between them and took hold of her, pressing her against him as he kissed her. The room was stifling hot, or maybe that was just him, the heat rolling off of him. She could blame the drugs he’d given her earlier, too, but she knew it wasn’t just that. He was relentless—no chaste, public and perfunctory kiss was this. He was demanding, seeking something, more always more, and she couldn’t hardly breathe. Kissing Tamaki wasn’t like this. Tamaki could be passionate, sure, but there was still an innocence to him. Not to Kyoya. This was intense, dangerous, dark… just like him. None of the men she’d dated in the years since Tamaki came close to this, either. She felt like she was in one of those shojo mangas full of debauchery, wanted to use clichés about drowning and even maybe turning into a puddle of goo because _damn,_ Kyoya was good at this. She was inexperienced, sure, but he knew what he was doing and she had gone from a startled, incoherent mess to one that wanted more just as much as he seemed to, and she had to grab hold of him when he finally let go so she didn’t fall.

She stared up at him, desperately searching for words to voice any part of her reaction to that, but none would come and her mouth just hung open like an idiotic fish.

“I thought as much,” Kyoya muttered, prying her fingers loose. “You had your test. You failed. Now go.”

“That was some test, Kyo-chan,” Hunny said, and she heard Mori hum in agreement. “Maybe we should have left you alone?”

“The point was to see if she was capable of acting like my wife. She is not.”

“Excuse me?” Haruhi found her voice, finally. “I think even a wife that had been married to you for years would be… a little breathless and a lot… distracted—turned on—I mean… It… Wouldn’t any woman have been… uh… gobsmacked after the kind of kiss you just gave me?”

He snorted, turning to leave, but she caught his cape and tugged him back, refusing to leave it like that. She knew he was just doing this to mess with her, but damn it, he didn’t get to win. He didn’t get to do _that_ to her and walk away.

“Haruhi, let it go. You have exhausted all your arguments, and I don’t want to hear another word.”

“Fine, don’t,” she said, yanking him close enough for another kiss. She didn’t kid herself it would be nearly as good as what he did to her, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t want more. Her mind was already tormenting her with images of how he’d looked that morning, painting in the nude, and she really did want to hate him now.

She’d wanted him back in her life again, but how the hell were they supposed to come back from this? He’d crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed, and they couldn’t be what they were before.

She was afraid.

She wanted more than this.

And… he didn’t even want her around.


	15. Close and Yet Forever Out of Reach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haruhi remembers. Kyoya reacts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had the idea for the flashbacks as soon as I finished the last chapter. I debated whether or not they worked in the story, decided eventually they did, and so I kept them.
> 
> Kyoya's reaction was hard to pin down, but... I tried.

* * *

_Her feet hurt, and she wanted to go home._

_She regretted saying yes to Kyoya, though not for the reasons she’d expected. He hadn’t lied to her and disappointed her in that way—she wasn’t seeing host Kyoya when he interacted with anyone while she was with him. She was aware of him steering her purposely away from some people as he sought out specific guests at the party, but she didn’t mind so much knowing that was his way of keeping his word. With the ones he chose to talk to, he was genuine. He didn’t use his host smile, though he was just as pointed in some statements as ever._

_This was something she liked seeing—a genuine Kyoya, no pretenses. No counterintuitive behavior. Just him._

_He’d managed to talk so many people into making larger donations than intended, and she actually didn’t mind when he did get manipulative, tricking some greedy people into giving more. Maybe they were doing it for the wrong reasons, but she knew the charity needed the money, and in this case, she could forgive Kyoya’s methods._

_Not necessarily how smug he was about it, but that was something else entirely._

_She would have been fine watching this show of Kyoya’s all night, but since Kyoya and her father had ambushed her with the need to look like a professional woman—all in the interest of being a better lawyer in the future—she had gotten plenty of other attention._

_Hunny had been the first one to ask her to dance, and she’d accepted because it was still damned hard to say no to Hunny even knowing how much he abused his cute factor. Then Hikaru had almost demanded a dance only for Mori to intervene and take her to the dance floor without a word. By the time she got back, Kaoru had calmed his brother down. Hikaru asked in a much nicer way that time, so she danced with him and then with Kaoru afterward._

_She thought one of them was going to ask her again, but by then Kyoya had reappeared at her side and led her off to the dance floor without a word. She could tell that some of the others weren’t happy, but she’d sensed a difference in Kyoya as soon as he returned. She wasn’t sure what had happened while he was gone, but whatever it was couldn’t have been good._

“ _I left you alone for too long.”_

“ _I never expected you to be my bodyguard all evening,” she said, shaking her head. She was still trying to figure him out, but she doubted he’d tell her the truth. Why had he wanted her here, anyway? Sure, he’d gotten her to agree by promising her more of the real Kyoya, the good guy he tried to keep hidden, but that couldn’t have been his only motivation._

_Maybe the shadow king part of him was enjoying just how much of an idiot Tamaki was making of himself, since he’d been in his emo corner growing mushrooms since Hunny first asked her to dance, but she didn’t think it was that, either._

“ _No. You don’t usually need a bodyguard.”_

“ _That’s not what you told me at the beach house.”_

_He smiled. “While it does amuse me to see you defy expectations and gender roles, I think it is for the best you remember that you are a woman.”_

“ _Careful, senpai. You’re sounding dangerously like a host now.”_

“ _You think so? All I spoke was the truth. Shouldn’t you be more offended and not try to tease me?”_

_She shook her head. “You knew all along that I was a girl when Tamaki-senpai pulled me into the club, and you enjoyed yourself when he figured it out finally, but for all the many flaws you might have, being a misogynist isn’t one of them. You don’t hate women or want us to be nothing more than child-bearing vessels. When you confronted me that day, it wasn’t about you feeling superior to me as a man. You were pointing out to me that in spite of how I saw myself or even the androgynous appearance I have that others make assumptions about, I could still be used and hurt because I was a woman. Because I lacked training and the ability to defend myself with anything more than my sense of justice. You could have taken advantage of me back then or even from the beginning, when I broke that vase. You didn’t, because that’s not the kind of person you are, but… you did chose fear to prove your point.”_

_He looked away. “It would seem that was a poor decision.”_

“ _No.”_

_That got his head to whip back toward her. “No?”_

“ _I took your lesson to heart. Don’t think I didn’t. I was still angry about it, angry that I should have to apologize for doing the right thing and all of you overreacting, but you weren’t wrong. They could have hurt me, and I couldn’t stop them. I could have chosen another way of confronting them and helping those girls. I… I don’t know that I would have accepted that if you hadn’t pointed it out to me in… well, admittedly, your method_ was _extreme, but I wasn’t scared. I... I dodged it, again, saying that you had nothing to gain from hurting me, but it wasn’t just that. You aren’t someone who enjoys hurting other people. You manipulate plenty of them. That’s not the same. I don’t think you’d ever do what you threatened with anyone no matter who they were or what they’d done to you. You’re not that person. You are, however, someone who will use the worst case scenario to frighten someone if you think it’s necessary.”_

“ _Hmm. So you believe such actions were necessary?”_

“ _Not necessarily. I mean, you could have made your point other ways, but you knew that one would work.”_

“ _Did I?”_

“ _You were surprised when I said you wouldn’t go through with it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t work. I did learn from what you did. I didn’t have enough time to discuss it all with you then because Tamaki-senpai walked in, got the wrong idea, and then decided he had the right to lecture me again. Because of that and the storm and everyone deciding he was a pervert—I saw that smirk. You did that, didn’t you?”_

“ _Me? What would I have to gain from making Tamaki appear a pervert?”_

“ _Revenge? He did barge into your room. He did get bothered about you and me being something we weren’t when even if we were it was no business of his, and really… do you need more reason than him being Tamaki-senpai?”_

“ _I’m curious. What prompts this mood?”_

_She grimaced. “You have to ask? He’s in the corner growing mushrooms again. He called himself my ‘daddy’ again. He refuses to grow up and face his own feelings. He’s not my father. If he’s really interested in me, why can’t he be a man about it and acknowledge what he feels?”_

“ _Is that truly what you want?”_

_She swallowed. Was it? While irritating, Tamaki’s behavior in insisting he was her father was mostly harmless. She didn’t need a second father, and she really didn’t have time for his fantasies or his bouts of woe in the corner. Yet if he did overcome that delusion and admit he liked her… that would complicate everything, wouldn’t it?_

“ _Never mind. I do not care to hear your answer.”_

“ _I’m not going to do anything that puts the host club at risk.”_

_Kyoya snorted. “You think that is why I might be concerned? How truly foolish of you.”_

_She was getting annoyed with Kyoya now. “Look, I don’t want to date anyone until I’m done with school. Love is messy and complicated, and Tamaki-senpai is clearly not ready for a relationship.”_

“ _Agreed. A relationship with you would likely destroy him.”_

_She tried not to react to that. Kyoya had gone from kind and nice, the kind of Kyoya she’d hoped to see more of after that day at the mall, to mean and spiteful. His walls were up high again, and she almost retaliated in kind, but she found herself staring at him instead._

“ _What happened when we separated? Did you… talk to your father? Or was it some other guest here that upset you?”_

“ _Upset me?”_

“ _Yes. You were in a good mood earlier. You were manipulating people as usual, but for a good cause, getting them to donate more money, and you managed to win over a bunch of others without playing the host, but now… you’ve gone full Shadow King, and it’s… I’m worried.”_

_He frowned. “Worried?”_

_She nodded. “Would you tell me what’s wrong? And not talk around it—you don’t have to ask if I really think something is wrong. I know it is.”_

_Kyoya studied her. “You do?”_

“ _Yes. Because even though you don’t seem to have noticed, we’re not dancing fast enough for this song. Or the last one. And since I know you know how to dance, it’s not that you don’t know how to move in time with the music. Plus, you look paler than usual and I think you might be sick.”_

“ _And if I said I was merely sick of this place and these people?”_

“ _Then I say we should leave now.”_

_He smirked like she’d said exactly what he wanted to hear, but somehow she didn’t mind this time, not one bit._

* * *

“ _You really don’t have to walk me all the way to the door. I know you’re not feeling well.”_

_Kyoya shook his head, stepping out of the car and holding out his hand for her to take. She did, thinking he could be surprisingly gentle when he held someone’s hand. True, he didn’t do as much hosting as some of the others, but he did know how to please the customers he did take on. He didn’t have the same kind of draw as Tamaki, but she didn’t think he needed it._

“ _If I failed to escort you properly, I have no doubts that I’d hear about it later,” Kyoya said, and she felt his hand on her back again, guiding her toward the stairs. He wasn’t wrong. Her father would say plenty if he didn’t do this—she hoped he was working late so he wouldn’t be there to grill Kyoya about how it went, but even if he wasn’t, her dad would still ask about it._

“ _You’re not actually afraid of my dad.”_

“ _I do not have to fear him like Tamaki does, but I would rather stay on his good side, of course,” Kyoya told her. He smiled, and it was supposed to be a joke, but she swore he looked even more tired and drawn now than he had when they were dancing. He should be at home sleeping, not here._

_She hurried to unlock the door, knowing that she needed to send Kyoya on his way as quickly as she could. She stepped inside, almost certain her father was still gone and not back in his bedroom. “I think you’re clear. You can go now.”_

_Kyoya shut the door behind him, leaning against it. “I’d rather not.”_

“ _Senpai?”_

“ _Allow me to spare myself the lecture I am sure to receive for leaving before the proper time by lingering here a while,” he said, and she found herself robbed of any words to object. Kyoya didn’t seem to be scheming a thing right now, just genuinely reluctant to go home, and really, could she blame him for that? He already didn’t feel good, and if his father was going to keep him up late because somehow what he’d done tonight wasn’t good enough…_

_She found herself balling her hands into fists and had to take a breath to calm down. “Sure. I’ll make some tea as soon as I get out of this dress.”_

_Kyoya smirked, and she frowned at him. Was she being manipulated again?_

_Probably, but she couldn’t do much about it now. “What?”_

“ _Are you certain you can manage that on your own? It must be quite awkward, judging from the position of that zipper.”_

“ _You noticed where my zipper was?”_

“ _Naturally. We did share several dances, after all, and my hand was on your back.”_

_Not there, she didn’t think, but she wasn’t really going to argue because she knew she’d never win. She’d had to have her father zip it because she couldn’t reach, so she wasn’t going to get out of it on her own._

“ _What am I going to owe you for your help?”_

“ _Nothing.”_

“ _Nothing?”_

“ _You already offered tea.” He stepped closer to her, and she nodded, still feeling like she was missing something, but then this was Kyoya and she always was. He was complicated and always hid his motives even when they seemed obvious._

“ _Okay, fine, but...” She glanced at the window, thinking his bodyguards were probably out there and that was just… wrong. She didn’t need them seeing this, and definitely not as shadows on their window shades that wouldn’t show what it really was. “Not here.”_

_Kyoya said nothing, following her back to her room. She took a step inside and then another, not sure how to make this less awkward._

“ _Your bed is ridiculously small.”_

_She glanced at the futon. She never had any issues with it, but Kyoya was a lot taller than her and his bed had to be much larger based on that alone. “It’s fine. Can you just… do the zipper already?”_

_He did, reaching over and tugging it down in a swift pull that had her gasping when the cooler air touched her skin. She rushed out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom, almost slamming the door shut behind her. She sat down on the floor. What kind of an idiot was she? Her things were back in her room, and it wasn’t like he’d done anything wrong. He’d even made it easier by being quick about it, so why was she being like this?_

_She sighed, forcing herself to move. She pulled her bathrobe on over the dress, not ready to have her back exposed again. She splashed water on her face and dried it off, still hoping she didn’t look like a complete idiot to him. Should she just go make tea? No, he was probably in the kitchen now._

_She shook her head at herself as she went back toward her room. What she saw then made her stop in the doorway. Kyoya hadn’t left. Somehow, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know how, he’d fallen asleep in her bed. “Senpai?”_

_Kyoya didn’t answer, didn’t so much as bat an eye. If he was faking, he was damned good at it, and she knew he was, but still… She went over to his side and gave him a slight shake._

“ _Hey. I know you said you didn’t want to go home, but this isn’t funny.”_

_He hadn’t even taken off his glasses. That should be a sure sign this was fake, but he didn’t stir. She bit her lip, trying to figure out what might make him give up the act. Nearly every idea she had was going to end in her humiliation, not his, since if she touched his hair or worse, kissed him, he’d be able to tease her about attempting to seduce him. She wasn’t._

_She put her hand to his forehead. “You idiot. You have a fever.”_

_He didn’t respond, so she sighed, pushing herself back up off the floor. Did she dare wake him? He was legendary for being a demon when roused early, and she hated to make him go home to a lecture when he was actually sick._

“ _Fine, stay where you are, but that really doesn’t look comfortable.”_

* * *

“ _I’m home,” Ryoji sing-songed from the doorway, and Haruhi looked up from her book. He frowned at her. “Why are you here?”_

“ _I live here?”_

“ _I know that, but you had a marvelous date tonight. A ball, a gala, a venue fit for a princess. Why are you sitting on that ratty couch in your bathrobe?”_

“ _Um...” She swallowed. “It wasn’t like that at all.”_

“ _Haruhi.”_

_She grimaced. “Okay, fine, pretend it was a ball if you must. It just… I guess you’d have to say that the prince got sick and I made him take me home early because he was exhausted. And feverish, not that he admitted it until he’d passed out.”_

“ _What?”_

“ _Oh. That. Dad… there’s a boy in my bed.” She saw his eyes bulge and sighed. “It’s Kyoya, and he is sick. One minute he was saying how small my futon was, the next he’d passed out in it. I don’t… I went down the hall to the bathroom, so I didn’t even know he’d sat down, but he’s out, and I didn’t want to wake him, so I left him where he was for a bit. I figured I’d try making him tea, but he didn’t wake up after it was done, so I gave up.”_

_Her father frowned, walking away from her down the hall. She rose and rushed after him, not sure what he was going to do. She didn’t want him to hurt Kyoya. He was sick and didn’t deserve that._

“ _Oh, look at him,” her father cooed. “So cute. Haruhi, for shame. Get your boyfriend a blanket.”_

“ _Dad, he’s not my—”_

“ _If you’d been lying and it was that terrible Tamaki boy, I’d have thrown him out in the street,” her father said. “Kyoya’s just so precious. He can stay. Now get him another blanket. He’ll freeze like that, and you said he had a fever. Honestly, haven’t you learned a thing about caring for someone who’s sick? Let’s make sure he’s very comfortable.”_

_She shook her head. She’d been sure he’d be angrier about this, but somehow he seemed willing to forgive Kyoya nearly anything. Fine. She didn’t care. She’d rather Kyoya got a chance to rest and recover instead of dealing with his father. She went over and grabbed a blanket, covering him with it as Ryoji lifted his head to give Kyoya another pillow._

“ _There. That’s better. What a sweetheart.”_

“ _Dad?”_

“ _Keeping your date when he’s so sick? Now that’s dedication. Not like that idiot Tamaki.” Her father reached out to brush back Kyoya’s hair and she shook her head. It wasn’t a real date, and Kyoya didn’t have much of a choice about it, not from how he’d reacted to going home, so it wasn’t anything special that he’d come with her while sick._

“ _You just rest now and get all better,” Ryoji told Kyoya, giving his head a pat. “Such a good boy.”_

“ _I can’t believe you’re saying that when he stole my bed.”_

“ _Could have been worse. He could have taken mine. Oh, the horror...”_

* * *

_Kyoya’s aching body hated him for sleeping on Haruhi’s excuse for a futon. He certainly hadn’t intended to, since he’d only even sat down when he nearly blacked out, all the injuries inflicted on him by his father during his lesson catching up to him in the middle of that party and leaving him unable to hide them any longer. She’d seen it in how slow they were dancing, and others probably had, too, which made him want to go home even less than usual. He’d intended to stall, of course, since if he lingered long enough the bodyguards would have a false impression of what had taken place during their conversation, but somehow that one act against his near loss of consciousness had become a disaster when he did succumb to his injuries after all._

_Spending a night on the floor wasn’t new, of course. He’d faced several, being unable to move after his father finished with him, but he hadn’t intended to do that at Haruhi’s house. Imply the date went well and to a conclusion that would satisfy his father that he was, in fact, doing his all to seduce Haruhi into a relationship, and then he’d have gone home._

_Instead, he found himself limping out in the middle of the night, well aware of his failure and how much trouble he’d caused himself. Even if Haruhi chose not to mention it, if Ryoji remained ignorant, Kyoya’s father would make him pay for such a lapse._

_Which was why he didn’t even want to go home, but if he did not, he would only compound his failure and suffer more. He needed to change clothes anyway, and if he did so at school, that would make for even more people being aware of his mistake._

“ _I had begun to think you weren’t coming home.”_

_If he had any sense, he wouldn’t, Kyoya couldn’t help thinking. He forced himself not to say it. “I did stay later than intended, yes.”_

“ _Is that all you have to say for yourself?”_

_Kyoya faced his father, looking at the other man with some amusement. “Should I say more? I wouldn’t think that was necessary.”_

“ _You have become more and more defiant of late,” his father said, closing the distance between them with his intent all too clear. “It is all to do with this girl, isn’t it?”_

_Kyoya shook his head. “Haruhi has little to do with this aside from the demands you’ve made of me. This… She’s not a part of it.”_

“ _Then you defy me all on your own? After knowing full well the consequences? After all this time?”_

_Kyoya forced himself to nod. This all started with knowing that getting everything his father had meant nothing. That saving them meant nothing. He’d done what was expected, not proved himself. He’d never prove himself to this bastard, and he was tired of trying. Tired of fighting a war he couldn’t win. He only did what he did now to protect Haruhi and the others as much as he could._

_He was losing the strength to do that._

* * *

Kyoya yanked himself free of Haruhi’s hold, trying to calm himself. What the hell was that? He’d made his point with her, and that was supposed to be the end of it. Why had she grabbed hold of him like that? Why kiss him again?

Why act like… _she wanted to?_

That wasn’t the plan. None of this was, no, but she shouldn’t be doing this. That confused the issue completely, threw everything into doubt. He knew she’d insist on helping him, on trying to nose into his business and right this perceived injustice of his current state of affairs, but he hadn’t thought she’d be willing to go this far for it.

Was she truly willing to sleep with him just to keep him from leaving?

Disgusted, he turned away. “You truly are desperate.”

“Excuse me?”

“I have no interest in having sex with you for the sake of some farce to fool my father,” Kyoya told her, pushing up his glasses. “The fact that you’re willing to debase yourself that far isn’t proof of any kind of… loyalty or commitment to your supposed redemption. It’s just sickening. Don’t do it again.”

She stared at him. “Kyoya...”

“Don’t bother defending your actions. You have none for them. Now that you’ve truly proven how low your opinion of me is, I would like you to leave. I do not need or want your help, as I have already said far more than was necessary.”

She shook her head. “That’s not what that was. I—”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“Maybe you should listen to her, Kyo-chan,” Hunny said, and Kyoya whirled to face him. As usual, the older man did his best to look cute enough to play on his sympathies, but Kyoya had none to be manipulated. “It didn’t look like any kind of act to us, right, Takashi?”

“I am not interested in your commentary. I know full well what it was and what it was not.”

“We can still help you without me playing your wife, and you were the one who started that, anyway. What right do you have to get mad if I’m willing to call your bluff and meet you with everything you’ve thrown at me? You kissed me first, remember?”

He had, and he couldn’t deny that. He’d meant to show her just how foolish this idea of hers was, make her back off with the unreasonableness of his demands, but she just kept agreeing and it infuriated him. He didn’t want blind agreement. He didn’t want her pretending to enjoy his kisses because she wanted to atone or some crap like that.

Damn it, he didn’t want her here. Not like this. Not now.

If he had been able to go a bit longer before his family forced her back into his life, he’d have dealt with his father. He could have gone back and spoken to any of his former friends if he so pleased. He’d have seen her if he liked. He wouldn’t be here, stuck on the defensive, trying to salvage something from this mess that just kept getting worse.

“Kyoya, I know you… you want any excuse you can get not to deal with us, but I won’t let you make that because of me,” she said, and he made the mistake of looking at her again. Something about this seemed more genuine than it should be. She might even be close to real tears. “If you really want to hate me, I… I suppose I can’t stop you, but I don’t want it to be because I didn’t try or I didn’t do enough. Not this time. I didn’t before, I can’t change that, but this time… I’ll be damned if I walk away. I can’t ignore what I know. I don’t even know how I did before. You were different before you left. I knew it. We all knew it. After you turned eighteen, you… you gave up. At the time, I didn’t believe it, I didn’t think you would, but… you did. You just stopped like you didn’t care about anything, and then you were gone. I tried to tell myself there was a lot going on—Tamaki finally waking up to how I _wasn’t_ his daughter and his feelings for me _were_ romantic kind of took over everything and that pushed you further away. I was so caught up in that… It was a mess, and I didn’t know how I felt and I—”

“I do not want another apology. This is—”

“—I mean, it seemed so obvious that I was supposed to feel the same about him and I even thought I did, but in the end, I didn’t. He wanted so much more than I did. Hormones are no excuse, everyone has them, but they’re all I have. I let myself believe it was love and I had to see it through… and I ruined a lot of things in the process.”

Kyoya already had a headache. He might well vomit at this rate. “This is not helping any. Just stop. Now. Before you say more that isn’t—”

“I’m not lying,” Haruhi said. “It’s too easy to believe it’s love when you’re young and don’t know any better. Sometimes you’re right. Sometimes you’re wrong. Sometimes you have to date someone to know that it’s not more. And sometimes it takes a while to realize that. Tamaki isn’t a bad guy. He never was. You know that. It’s just… his needs and my needs were different. His wants and mine were so far apart they were… I’m sorry. That’s not really what you need to hear. The truth is that what Tamaki felt for me broke the host club, and I think we all knew it would. I think that’s why he tried to deny it for as long as he did, but it broke us anyway because Hikaru was jealous and I was trying to hold onto what was there just as much as Tamaki had, so when you pulled away… I think we all may have assumed it was the same thing, and I guess we also thought your loyalty to Tamaki would win out overall, but we shouldn’t have. You were hurting just as much, and no one bothered to find out your reasons. We left you alone, thinking you’d deal with your problems alone, and that… that was probably the worst thing we could do.”

“I didn’t need you coddling me.”

“No, but you sure as hell needed someone somewhere to show they gave a damn about you, and that wasn’t what we did, was it?” Haruhi sighed. “I think about how selfish we all were, and I think of how people said you were selfish, but in so many ways you were _selfless_ in comparison to us, and we didn’t see it. And you really don’t have any reason to expect us to be different now, but… I can’t stop asking for that chance. I wasn’t ready to be the friend you needed back then. I don’t even know that I am now, but I still have to try.”

Kyoya put a hand to his head. “This is so tedious.”

“Maybe,” Hunny agreed, “but maybe that means it would be easier just to let us help?”

“Stop trying to be cute. It never worked on me.”

“That does not mean he’s wrong,” Mori said. “You are making it harder by fighting us and rejecting the help we would give.”

That much seemed true enough. Kyoya hadn’t managed to make any progress in pushing them away or refusing their ill-advised assistance. They didn’t understand, and as much as he’d shared to convince them otherwise, he had not managed to do so. He could either accept their involvement and modify his plans or risk them doing even more damage to them.

Haruhi, for one, had made it clear she wouldn’t leave or allow him to keep her out of this. She might even go straight to his father if he didn’t find some way of keeping her pacified. And if she did that, none of this would be worth it.

No.

There was another option.

Kyoya hadn’t wanted it, hadn’t even acknowledged it before, but he knew it could be done. He could spare these idiots from the pain they wanted to draw on themselves. He could keep them far from his father’s clutches, keep that man from getting what he wanted in one sense while handing it to him in another.

If he let them think they had won, it would be simple enough to work around them. He could concede defeat, accept their “help,” and carry out his plan easily enough. It would not take much at all to do.

Chi bumped at his hand, and he knew if he was not careful, the cat would give his intentions away. Still, it would not take much. He could settle this simply. All he had to do was go back to his father.

Someone took his other hand, and he turned to Haruhi in confusion.

“I’ll do it. Not as your heir or wife or anything… You can put me in charge of the Ootori Group so you don’t have to go back but it’s safe. Forget all the rest of it. I’m willing to do this. Please.”

She was making this too easy. If they thought that pacified him, it would be even easier to do what must be done.

“Very well.”


	16. The Beginning of Something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan starts being put in motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know where all of this came from all of a sudden. I know I was stuck and stuck and then somehow dialogue came, and that led to this... Parts of it are funny, parts of it are not, and emotionally, it's as much of a mess as I am.

* * *

Hearing Kyoya agree wasn’t as much of a relief as Haruhi thought it would be. She was still tense, waiting for some other caveat, some other demand, some other attempt to push them away. Where was it? When was that other shoe going to drop?

His expression was blank in comparison to the resignation in his voice, and her sense that something was still wrong wouldn’t leave. She didn’t know what his plan was, but she didn’t think it could be good.

She glanced toward Hunny and then Mori. Hunny seemed eager, but Mori appeared more guarded. So he thought Kyoya was up to something, too, did he?

She wouldn’t let Kyoya run this time. She knew it was selfish of her, but she couldn’t let him go. She wanted to help, and maybe it was for the wrong reasons, but she had to try anyway. She swallowed. If Kyoya had even the smallest of opportunities, he’d cut and run, and that would be the last they saw of him for years, so she had to do this right, do this carefully, and she was up against the shadow king—she was likely to lose. She knew that, but she wasn’t the type to give up easily.

“How long do you think it will take to set everything up and make a bid for taking over the company?”

Kyoya reached into his suit pocket and took out a phone, pulling up a calendar. “Hmm. Your timing may have been more fortuitous than you knew. Again, I suspect that is my father’s doing. Nevertheless, next week is the annual shareholder’s meeting, which would be an ideal time for such a revelation.”

She nodded. A week. That should be enough time, though she wasn’t about to relax her guard and think Kyoya wouldn’t work on some other plan before that happened.

“All right, a week. So that gives us enough time to get the other legal stuff arranged,” she said, nodding. “We can leave your patsy in place as the artist, you can remain his manager and—”

“I don’t see why there’s any need to expose my ‘role’ as his manager.”

She almost laughed. “Kyoya, no one at my office believed that kind of an eccentric artist should have as much legal acumen as you did. I told you that it made you seem suspicious. I heard your voice in those emails. We don’t know for sure that your father knew it was you or even suspected it was, but this way there’s an explanation for everything and your art is safe.”

Kyoya blinked. “You… are trying to preserve my art?”

“Yes, of course I am,” she said, banishing the idea of him painting naked out of her head again. “He shouldn’t be able to take that from you or destroy it. We won’t let him.”

Kyoya shook his head. “It’s not necessary. I told you it doesn’t actually matter to me.”

That was a lie, and she knew it, but knowing Kyoya, he’d do something extreme to prove it wasn’t. She didn’t want him destroying his art or his home. “I still think it’s better this way. It explains how the artist was able to outwit them, explains what I’ve been up to for the past few days, and allows us to establish the family tie.”

He frowned. “The what now?”

“The Ootori Group is family run, right? And you said...” She felt herself redden. “I think you may be right about us needing _that_ tie. Marriage.”

He studied her, and she fought the urge to run. She had to stand her ground. This was important, and she’d already agreed to this much. She knew it wasn’t what he wanted, but she also knew that she wasn’t likely to get control of the Ootori Group without Kyoya’s help—no, without him at her side. She didn’t kid herself. This was Japan, and the Ootori Group was extremely patriarchal.

“I know it’s not what you want or what you need—you deserve a loving marriage, not an arrangement or something for someone’s benefit. I mean, ideally, marriage would be all the things in books and movies—completion, happiness—but for you it’s even more important you don’t have something that’s just a business deal. You, of all people, should have a marriage based on love and mutual respect, and I know I’m not that, but… I love you enough to do whatever it takes to free you from your father’s hold. You can divorce me afterward and find someone better. I… I just...”

Words failed her then. Kyoya’s look had her unable to continue.

“Haruhi may be right,” Mori said, and she was freed from Kyoya’s gaze when he turned to demand an explanation from their usual silent friend. “She is a woman. Do you actually believe they will accept her after years of your father?”

Kyoya’s expression was answer enough to that, as much as he’d been the one to suggest it first.

She put a hand on his arm. “I don’t want you to have to do this. You said it’s the last thing you want, and I can—I’ll take over the business, but I do need you to get me into a position where I can. That’s not anything you haven’t already considered.”

“It is not as simple as—”

“And if you really want to test and see if anyone will believe it, we’ll run it past my dad first.”

“What?”

She had to smile then. “Come on. You know how he’s been with all of my boyfriends, or at least you can guess. If my father believes a whirlwind romance between us, no one else is going to doubt it.”

“Akito and my father will.”

She had to give him that. “Okay, maybe they won’t believe it, but did you honestly expect them to? The people we need to convince are the others on the board, and I think we can do that. We both have host training, my dad would be on our side, and… there is something there, friendship or… hormones or something… This isn’t coming out how I want it to, but you know I’m not wrong. We can make it work.”

“Haruhi—”

“I’ll throw a party with lots of cake.”

“That is not helpful, Mitsukuni.”

Haruhi ignored them. She focused on Kyoya. “Let me call my dad. If he believes it, then I think we can go forward. And if he doesn’t… Well, we didn’t lose anything but a few minutes of time. It should be okay.”

Kyoya said nothing, and she reluctantly took it as a yes.

* * *

“Haruhi! It’s been too long since I’ve heard from my beautiful daughter. Now that you’re a lawyer, you never make time for Daddy,” Ryoji said as he answered the phone. He dried the plate off on his new favorite apron and set it in the cupboard. He had missed his daughter so much since she moved into an apartment of her own. This old place seemed too big without her when it had always been too small when she was here.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Well, don’t sound so happy to talk to me. Why are you calling being all gloomy? Did you decide you didn’t like the new department after all?”

“No, it’s not that. I… I have something to tell you, and I’m not sure how you’ll take it, that’s all.”

Ryoji frowned, setting the glass back in the sink. He didn’t know that he wanted to be holding any of his precious few dishes just now. He had a bad habit of breaking them, and he didn’t always remember to replace them. Haruhi had always done that.

“What is it?”

“Um… how would you react if I told you I found someone I wanted to marry?”

Ryoji almost burst out laughing. “Haruhi, sweetheart, why would you tease me so? You know I don’t believe that for a minute.”

“No?”

“Well, since you couldn’t possibly love one of those stuffy lawyer types you work with, most of whom are already tragically married and you haven’t found Kyoya, of course you must be teasing.”

The other end was silent for a moment before Haruhi spoke again. “Why would you say that about Kyoya?”

“Because there’s no one I think is better suited to you, not in any of the ones I’ve met. Not to say that you didn’t have some choice options when you were younger, but some of them have already chosen others, and you proved me quite right about that Tamaki boy. That was a disaster, just like I said it would be. Kyoya was the complete package—looks, brains, money… and he adored you and understood you better than you knew.”

“Adored me?”

“You do realize your father is prone to exaggeration, do you not?”

Ryoji grabbed the sink to hold himself up on his feet. “Kyoya? That can’t really be you, can it?”

“I kept telling her it wasn’t, but she didn’t believe me. She is quite stubborn, your daughter.”

“Don’t I know it.” Ryoji, being her father, knew that better than anyone. Still, he couldn’t help his excitement. “You’re back, Kyoya. You have no idea how much you’ve been missed. Haruhi moped around here for weeks after you disappeared. I almost thought she’d forget her dreams of law school she was so depressed.”

“Dad! That’s not—”

“That Suoh boy would come over and expect her to cheer him up or forget all about it, just wanted everything to be perfect and happy, and how does that even happen when the most valuable piece is missing? That’s like dressing up to go out without the actual dress. It doesn’t work, and people try to arrest you.”

“Dad!”

“I am not certain I appreciate being the ‘dress’ in this metaphor, but as I was the ‘mother’ before, I suppose I can tolerate it.”

“Of course. You are a very reasonable man, Kyoya. You always have been. Still, I do have to wonder where you’ve been all this time? How did you come back into my little girl’s life? And are you actually going to make me the happiest father ever?”

“Dad—”

“As to where I’ve been, that’s not something detailed quickly, but in summary—I traveled, I settled, and I now run a cat shelter. Haruhi’s law firm didn’t much care for that, so they attempted to shut it down. I decided to seduce her into leaving me alone. It was more effective in one sense than anticipated and less effective in others.”

“I want all the details. When are we meeting? I get to see you before the wedding, don’t I? I am giving my little girl away. You won’t take that moment from me by eloping, will you?”

“Naturally, these things should be done properly, though if I’m honest about it, I’d prefer elopement. Weddings for members of the Ootori family are as much a business deal as they are anything else, and even Fuyumi’s was much more than she wanted despite her girlish hopes on the matter and planning as much of it as she could herself.”

“I’ll do all the planning. I know a dress that’s perfect for Haruhi. You just give me a little bit of time, and I will have everything you need for a beautiful wedding—”

“Dad—”

“My little girl is getting married. I didn’t think I’d ever be ready for this day...”

“You’re taking this surprisingly well considering you haven’t seen me in years," Kyoya observed. "What if I were penniless, fat, and abusive?”

Ryoji laughed. “I think you’re too much like a cat not to land on your feet. Whatever you’ve done in the past few years, even if you were broke, you’d have found a way to come back from it, and I bet you’d be dreamy even with a bit of extra weight. You were actually _too_ skinny when you were younger, so a bit of meat on your bones… Hmm...”

“Dad—”

“Okay, okay, he’s going to be your husband. Fathers will keep those thoughts to themselves. Now where is this wedding happening?”

* * *

“A cat shelter?”

“You were the one that said we were keeping my art safe,” Kyoya said, and Haruhi nodded. He studied her again. She’d been the one to push for this, but somehow she seemed displeased that it had gone her way. Her father was, as she’d said he would be, quite pleased with their new status and fully on board with their marriage—not knowing, of course, that it was a sham. “If we’d said it was about the art, that wouldn’t work. Besides, it’s not entirely a lie—this house shelters many cats, and you did endanger it by coming.”

She grimaced. “I know. I just… I mean, I didn’t know all I was putting at risk when I first came. I was just trying to get my boss off my back because they weren’t willing to accept your no, which makes sense considering it was your father making the demand, but at the same time… I am glad I came.”

She looked up at him with that hopeful smile of hers, and he wanted to crush it. He was backed into a corner, he knew that, and he knew there was little chance of her succeeding in taking over the Ootori Group if they did not play it this way, but at the same time, he didn’t want her involved.

“ _Can’t believe you’d be stupid enough to throw it all away for some girl,” Akito said, and Kyoya stopped, not wanting to acknowledge the truth in his brother’s words. He hadn’t thought he’d be this stupid, either, but his efforts to shield Haruhi from his father had a high enough cost that he couldn’t deny how much easier it would be just to do what his father wanted. He knew dozens of cheap ways of getting what was necessary, and yet he hadn’t used any of them._

“ _What would you know, Akito? You folded before anything was ever of value to you.”_

_His older brother knocked him back against the wall, aggravating all the bruises his father had already left on him. “You know I still get what I want. And I will get what I want. You? I can still see the fear in your eyes. You’re weak. You let these friends of yours matter, and he knows it. It’s fun to him, making you bend over backwards to save them.”_

“ _I’m not saving anyone.”_

“ _Could you protect them from both of us, do you think? I know how much she means to you, after all. So what if Father has a plan for her? I think mine would work just as well.”_

_Kyoya forced a smile. “You’re the one who’s too weak to defy him. You won’t touch her because you’re more afraid of him than I am.”_

“ _You keep telling yourself that, little brother. We’ll see who’s right.”_

“Kyo-chan?”

“No, you cannot tell Hikaru, Kaoru, or Tamaki right now.” Kyoya took a deep breath and let it out, reaching up to pinch his nose. Why did all these memories have to interrupt him now? He couldn’t afford the distraction. “Whatever the emotional fallout of this choice, it needs to happen naturally, and more importantly—I told you I believe my father is monitoring your communications as much as he possibly can. Telling the others could make this a completely wasted effort. I’m not even sure we didn’t just throw away our best chance in allowing Ryoji to know.”

“Dad swore he wouldn’t tell anyone when you threatened to refuse to give him the location of the wedding. Which—where did you even send him, anyway?”

“Somewhere even he can get lost in a crowd so anyone from my father’s police force following him won’t see my people leading him off to where he really needs to be.”

“Always two steps ahead,” she said, though her smile was troubled. “Um… I know we’re leaving the artist here, but how long before he wakes up?”

“Would you two see to that?” Kyoya asked, looking at Mori. “He’s easily led, so if he is awake, assure him it was simply bad fruit and give him another glass from the kitchen. I’ll deal with him if necessary.”

“Of course, Kyo-chan.”

* * *

Hunny shut the door behind them and took out his phone, composing a short message. He knew that he needed to check on that stranger, but that could wait a bit longer. He had a feeling it was too soon for him to be awake anyway, though it would be kinder if he was no longer on the floor. They could move him to a gentler place, if nothing else.

“What are you doing?”

He looked up at his cousin. Takashi was worried, that much was clear even without words, but he gave them as well. “I told Kao-chan and Hika-chan to come to Japan after their show.”

Takashi frowned.

“I didn’t tell them anything about Kyo-chan, but if they come after their fashion show, it’ll be just about the same time as the stockholder’s meeting Kyo-chan’s planning on using. That’s a good time for them to be here. We may need them.”

“This is dangerous.”

Hunny nodded. Kyo-chan’s father was a powerful man, even if he’d nearly lost his empire once. He’d be even more ruthless after something like that, and Kyo-chan wasn’t wrong to fear him, as much as he kept saying he didn’t. This could mean someone’s death, though Hunny didn’t want that to happen.

He would fight to protect his friends. “They won’t be alone. We’ll do our part. That’s why he let us be a part of this much. He knows if we support their marriage, his father can’t do much about it. He will also have to come through us to get to them, and his police force is no match for the Haninozuka style. Or the Morinozuka.”

“If Kyoya thought it was that simple, he would have already asked for our help.”

Hunny wasn’t so sure Kyoya saw this as clearly as he thought he did. He’d grown up scared of his father, and even now, he was acting out of that same fear. And another one, one Hunny wasn’t even sure he acknowledged himself. “Kyo-chan never stopped loving her.”

“Mitsukuni—”

“But maybe this time she’s ready to love him back.”

* * *

Kyoya waited for the others to leave and shut the door behind them. He would wait even longer, since he didn’t think he’d fooled Mori at all, and likely not “innocent” Hunny, either. They both were almost certainly aware that it had been a feeble excuse on Haruhi’s part to get them out of the room.

He looked back at her. “You obviously had something to say that you didn’t want to say in front of them. Out with it.”

“I wanted to ask you a question and get an honest answer.”

He folded his arms over his chest. “And that would be, what, exactly?”

“Are you really okay with this?”

He snorted. That was an absurd thing to ask. He wasn’t, and she already knew that. This wasn’t even worth answering.

She put her hand on his arm. “I mean it, though. You said you would, and you gave a great performance with my dad, but helping you by forcing you into something you don’t want isn’t really helping at all. And I don’t want you to hate me. I keep telling myself I can understand if you do, but even if I understand, I don’t want it to be like that.”

This would be so much easier if he did just hate her. “I agree that this is the simplest means to the end we all want—short of killing my father, that is.”

She nodded, still not appeased. “I meant what I said, Kyoya. Once you’re free of all this… I want you to have what you didn’t before… I want you to have all the love you didn’t get and even more.”

He turned away, not able to respond to that. She was still so naive about this sort of thing. “You should know it was what he wanted.”

“What, my dad? We already knew that.”

“No. Not your father.”

“Your father? What do you mean it’s what he wanted? Isn’t this—”

“My father knew that Tamaki’s father was interested in having you for a daughter-in-law. The last thing he wanted was Tamaki having a capable wife. Yuzuru Suoh was easily manipulated, both by his mother and my father, and his son would have been the same. You were different. You stood up to my father, and he couldn’t allow that. He gave me orders to make certain you and Tamaki never became a couple. He told me to make you mine.”

She came around to face him. “That’s...”

“Unspeakable? Yes, but we’re talking about my father here. He didn’t care. He wanted his control over Suoh to remain strong… and he wanted you where he could put you in your place. Knowing that, do you still wish to go forward with this plan?”

She looked down and then back up at him, steeling herself. “Yes. I do. Because he was wrong to ask that of you, and because he might think he’s won, but he’s a fool because he doesn’t see that we were all always stronger together. The Host Club worked because we all worked together. You and I… we may not even have had the same goals, but we could and did work together well. I suppose it’s stupid to think I wanted more of that, but when I look back… I did. You remember that fundraiser you conned me into going to, that one where you got sick after we got back to my house? You were… incredible that night. I wanted to be mad at how you manipulated them, but I wasn’t. I was impressed. And I was glad I got to see it. I never told you that. There’ s a lot I never said.”

“This isn’t a confessional.”

She laughed. “No, it’s not, and it wouldn’t be fair if you were a priest. I just… It doesn’t mean much, saying it now, but I did spend years wondering what I could have said or should have said to keep you with us. I never wanted… I never wanted you to go. I thought, that night, I was finally seeing the real you I kept wanting to see, and I let that and those weeks after it fool me into complacency, and then… I was an idiot, okay?”

“Don’t expect me to argue that point.”

“I’m not. I just… I’m glad you are going to let us help now, even if you still don’t want to.”

“Is that all?”

She shook her head at the same time as she spoke. “Yes.”

He found that a bit amusing, though the impulse to reach out and touch her again was infuriating. That wasn’t what this was. He was going to let her and the others think they had their way, let his father think he’d won, and then he’d do what was necessary. That was all this was.

“How long will it take to get controlling interest in your father’s company?”

“A few hours, if I’m not particularly cautious, though it would be better if I spread it out over the next week. As I said, allowing your father to know I am alive is a risk, and if his phone is monitored—then we’ve already tipped our hands, but it’s difficult to be certain. I was in contact with Ryoji before, so it isn’t impossible they’d see him as someone to watch, but it doesn’t mean they are, either.”

“You did that because I asked you to,” she said, “so again, thank you.”

“Haruhi—”

“I know there are no guarantees. And I know I can’t really promise you it will be okay because you’re too damaged and too practical to believe that, and we might not be able to account for everything, though I know you’ll do your damnedest, but I still want to make all those promises. I want to believe it will be okay. Most of all, I don’t want to lose you again.” She put her arms around him, and he stiffened, moving to push her off. “Now who can’t fake it?”

“That’s not particularly amusing.”

“Just let me have a minute, please. It’s… This won’t be easy, and there’s a lot to prepare for, and I just want this one moment before we start.”

She mumbled something else into his suit, and he frowned. “Haruhi?”

“It’s funny. I spent all that time dodging hugs from the twins, getting caught in ones from Tamaki or Hunny, didn’t dream Mori would hug me, ever, though he carried me once, and you were the shadow king, so no one but Tamaki would dream of doing this to you, but… it’s nice, holding onto you.”

“Is this… practice for what is to come?”

“If saying that means you won’t force me off, then sure, it’s practice.”

Her behavior was confusing him again. Why did she persist in acting like she cared? This was uncomfortable at best.

“I suppose we should discuss where to live—”

“I have an apartment in the city that is suitable for the role we’re playing. Yours is not. Don’t even start to argue with me. Nothing ‘cheap’ by my father’s standards will suffice. Nor will it impress the board. They won’t side with you if they think they’ll lose money, and your commoner tastes would send the wrong message.”

“Fine. We can use your place. I suppose I’ll have to let you dress me, too.”

That was a dangerous thought, but he shrugged it off. “If you wish to back out, now is the time. Your father will be disappointed, but that can be dealt with. He could use a vacation.”

“I think I’m okay with you picking out my clothes. I just don’t want the twins doing it.”

“They are fashion designers.”

“Yes, but they’re not experts on what passes for acceptable in the world we have to be in. You are. You know what’s expected of an Ootori, and if I’m going to play one, I have to look the part, too. It’s not going to be an easy sell, I know that, but that’s why I asked for your help. We can do this. The marriage. We can make it work.”

Damn it all. He’d swear she wasn’t just talking about the pretense right now.

“You have a lot to learn in less than a week.”

“Does this mean you won’t get mad if I start calling you ‘senpai’ again?”

He shouldn’t, he knew he shouldn’t, but for some reason, he gave in and laughed.


End file.
